GREATER MINNEAPOLIS COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : i**o@g**c.o*g
Mission Statement
GMCC (founded as the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches) is an interfaith, multicultural non-profit social services agency located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For 118 years, GMCC has worked to meet our community’s greatest needs, address unequal access to resources, and further racial equity and social justice through advocacy, education, and a variety of services and programs. Our longstanding mission “uniting people of faith, serving people in need,” supports a vision in which everyone has access to the opportunities and resources necessary to live healthy, fulfilling lives. Today, we further justice through values-based programming in the areas of food, youth, and well-being. Our work has included advocacy and education around equity, poverty, and social justice; volunteerism; service-learning; mentoring; support services for the elderly; youth development and education; hunger relief; recovery; and bringing people together to strengthen community. We have a long history of pivoting in response to urgent, emerging needs.
About This Cause
Our longstanding mission “uniting people of faith, serving people in need,” supports a vision in which everyone has access to the opportunities and resources necessary to live healthy, fulfilling lives. Today, we work primarily in the areas of food, youth, and well-being. Our programs work to tackle social inequalities through systems change in tandem with relief work. Our work has included advocacy and education around equity, poverty, and social justice; volunteerism; service-learning; mentoring; support services for the elderly; youth development; hunger relief; and bringing people together to strengthen community. GMCC founded Minnesota FoodShare (MFS) 43 years ago. MFS was part of a coalition of organizations that helped build Minnesota’s current system of food assistance programs, food shelves, and pantries as a response to food insecurity brought on by federal funding cutbacks. While this system was intended to be a short-term emergency response, four decades later, Minnesota food shelves still accommodate over 9,000 visits daily and as many as 7.5 million visits a year. MFS has partnered with hundreds of food shelves, organizations, and companies to address hunger, food insecurity, poverty, and equity gaps throughout Minnesota through education and advocacy, by raising and regranting funds, and by building networks that support local food shelves. Our annual March Campaign is the largest grassroots food and fund drive in the state and engages thousands of people to raise food and funds for our 285 food shelf partners across Minnesota. Minnesota FoodShare serves as a capacity-building and fundraising arm to ensure food shelves can continue to address hunger in their communities through the winter. To date, the March Campaign has raised over 180 million dollars and 282 million pounds of food, equating to over one billion meals. In addition to supporting food shelves across the state, GMCC operates a weekly pop-up food shelf operation that provides hot meals, coffee, produce, dairy and egg items, and non-perishable food items to members of Midtown Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis. LakeStreet Youth Labs (LSYL) is GMCC’s out-of-school, year-round educational program that serves underinvested and primarily BIPOC youth and families. LSYL’s mission is to provide accessible, hands-on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, math) learning opportunities for youth grades 1-12. LSYL envisions a world where all young people have access to exciting, high quality, and free educational experiences in their own communities. Currently, this includes: LSYL Summer Camp, a five week, all-day (9-5, M-F), no-cost STEAM-based program for students grades 1-8; school year programming including weeknight tutoring and homework help for middle schoolers, an open computer lab, digital art classes, and outdoor recreational activities; and STEAM Saturdays, which provides hands-on learning in a variety of STEAM topics for students in grades K-12. Our goals are to decrease educational disparities; increase skills in independent living, decision-making, and conflict resolution; build relationships with positive, caring adults; improve family relationships; improve intercultural competence; improve academic performance and spark interest in STEAM topics; prepare students for the next phase of their life; facilitate career and vocational exploration; and provide wraparound support to ensure students can best learn and succeed. GMCC’s Recovery Care Program includes culturally-specific peer recovery coaching for the Twin Cities’ East African community. We offer accessible, free, community-based, culturally-appropriate, and trauma-informed 1:1 peer recovery support for people struggling with OUD/SUD. We maintain a team of part-time Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who have lived experience with OUD/SUD as well as incarceration, homelessness, and other challenges associated with OUD/SUD and are formally trained as Peer Recovery Coaches (PRCs). PRCs have collectively served over 150 community members through interventions, identifying detox and treatment options, basic needs access and wraparound services, weekly All Recovery meetings, and community-building activities. As part of our community care and recovery work, GMCC also runs a weekly drop-in center, a collaborative partnership between GMCC, Conflict Resolution Center, Sanctuary Supply Depot, Access Healing Center, and other partners. We serve unsheltered individuals out of GMCC’s facility in Midtown Phillips with weekly healing circles, one-on-one case management, access to hot running water (showers), hygiene products, harm reduction supplies, clean clothing, food bags, and prepared meals.