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Dear Friends,
Back in 1896, the services VOALA offered to the needy in this bustling community of 100,000 included a Mission Hall, a home for orphaned children, and a prison reform crusade. The most serious social ills of Los Angeles, including poverty and crime, have not markedly changed. What has changed is the scope.
Today, Volunteers of America is even more committed to finding solutions to those issues that burden us as individuals, and as a society. The challenge for VOALA is to move beyond impacting one life at a time to creating a ripple effect of positive change that permanently transforms entire neighborhoods.
Our commitment to bring lasting solutions has led us to innovative ways to support personal growth and self-sufficiency. We believe the first step is to see people as fundamentally healthy rather than ill. With this “wellness model” we focus on strengths rather than weaknesses. We don’t rely on external interventions but trust the innate competence and resilience of people to reclaim hope, dignity and purpose.
Our emerging efforts will be comprehensive and system-wide, involving all segments of the population including public and private institutions. Recent innovations focus on responsibility and accountability, and are designed to foster the capacity for self-reliance for people within their own communities so that they will themselves create the economic and social conditions needed to enable sustainable heath and wellbeing for all.
I am grateful for your support of our efforts as we continue to serve those that are unable to help themselves. Your investment will make a difference. By leveraging program funding from various sources, we will use your contributions to produce even greater effects. By leveraging various technologies, our services will gain further impact and efficiencies.
It is in giving to something greater than ourselves, we find the greatness in ourselves.
Sincerely,
Bob Pratt
President, Volunteers of America Greater Los Angeles
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