Sustainable Alamance

We believe that poverty is not a lack of money, but a lack of resources.  We believe that you can “give a man a fish”  (charity)  and even “teach a man to fish” (grace and mercy),  but we must also ensure access to the lake (justice).

The sustainability dialog has to be expanded beyond windmills and solar panels to include the human resource.    Can you have a sustainable community model if thousands of your citizens are effectively prohibited for participating in the local economy?   We at Sustainable Alamance believe the answer is "No!"

We also know that BOLD and INNOVATIVE thinking is required, to move beyond emergency relief  approaches for solving chronic problems like chronic unemployment, hunger and homelessness in our community, to a more sustainable, developmental approach.

 

Vision - Dream 

To build a stronger and more sustainable community not only by promoting wise use of local natural and economic resources, but by identifying, developing and including underutilized human resources that are effectively prevented from participating in the local economy.

Impact

Through June 2014, Sustainable Alamance has helped place 46 men and women, with criminal histories,  into full time employment... up from 6 in 2010.    This will represent over to $750,000 in wages, thousands in taxes, dozens of children receiving child support.   Out of the 46, we had only 4 return to prison,  an 8% recidivism rate, a 90% percent reduction in recidivism.   The cost savings to the NC taxpayer for these 46  is over $0.5 million per year …  the cost of incarceration.    

 

But let's be clear, all the numbers and wages and tax savings is NOT why we do this.   We do this for the following reasons.

1.        People matter to God….. all people…… regardless of what we did in the past.

2.       God came to visit us to fix what was broken.   Remember that Jesus not only healed the lepers'  physical illness but he sent them back to the temple… He restored them to the community.

3.       Society has been using the wrong ruler to measure the worth and value of people.  A person's value is not determined by their economic station in life.  People have value because they are God's creation.

4.       Just as important…… lives are being changed, families are being restored, men are becoming fathers, and they all have a chance to show the community what a changed life looks like.