What Made a Difference in the Last Decade

10. Local Food Banks

We’ve experienced two recessions in the 2000s, and the second is the worst Americans have seen in decades.  This has meant that even more people rely on food banks to meet their daily needs as unemployment rises and incomes stagnate and fall.  The USDA’s recent figures state that 49 million people, thirty-six percent of Americans, face hunger.  The local food bank is one of the best ways to meet that basic need.  You can find your local food banks at Feeding America.

9.  Tackling Human Trafficking

Many organizations have sought to educate Americans and others on the reality of human trafficking over the past decade.  And with good reason: according to Love146.org, human trafficking is the second largest income generating syndicate in the world.  It will be tough to bring down, but there is more awareness and attention being paid to it than ever before.

(Photo courtesy of RootedUp.com.)

8.  Using Art to Make a Difference

When Born into Brothels came out in 2005 and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, it elevated the importance of art in humanitarian work.  The immediacy of feeding starving people, stopping AIDS, developing economic capacity, and other essential responses to poverty were rounded out by the importance of feeding the artistic soul.  Groups like Music 4 the Kids take the idea even further: they empower kids in difficult circumstances to create music that brings hope to others in similar situations.

7.  Seeking Justice for the Innocent

International Justice Mission has been working to free the innocent through the courts and the law for some time.  The work of The Innocent Project, an organization that seeks to free wrongfully imprisoned people through DNA testing, has led to the exoneration of 248 people since 1992.  In 2009 twenty-seven prisoners were released, who had served a collective 421 years of prison time for crimes they didn’t commit.

6.  Caring for Pregnant Women and Foster or Orphaned Children

In an age when most of the conversations about families and pregnancy has to do with abortion, there are people who take a different view of crisis pregnancy: caring holistically for the women and children who might otherwise terminate their pregnancy.  Organizations like The Elizabeth House in Pasadena do just that.  It is a shelter for homeless pregnant women and their children that is “dedicated to changing lives one family at a time…[that] provides a safe home, support and hope for women who find themselves pregnant and in a time of crisis.”  Another side of this crisis are the hundreds of thousands of children in foster care (Over 463,000 were e in 2008 according to AFCARS data).  But there aren’t enough foster families to take them in. The National Network For Children in Foster Care says, “there isn’t enough money to provide them the things every child needs. There aren’t enough people to help them, mentor them, or to simply cheer them up and give them hope for the future.”  Those who care for these children, including foster parents and mentoring programs,  are truly giving of their lives, and making a significant difference.

5.  Advocacy, Creative Activism, and ACT:S

College-aged activism has risen steadily during the last decade, and ACT:S (formerly, Acting on AIDS) has been at the forefront, pushing it along.  Currently on more than 200 college campuses around the nation, they have been using their collective voice to speak out on faith and justice, and have influenced thousands since the fall of 2004 when it began as a simple movement on Seattle’s Seattle Pacific University campus (in September 2009, Acting on AIDS transitioned into WorldVision ACT:S).  In the words of a founding member, ACT:S is a movement of students that believe simple acts can still change the world.  It is a network of students committed to exploring what faith says about poverty and injustice, using creative activism to bring issues to life (including the Broken Bread Poverty Meal,  Lines are on the Line AIDS display, and Human Wrong Initiative) and change hearts, and using their voices to advocate with our government leaders.  ACT:S has influenced thousands of students during those crucial college years, helping them to understand their interconnectendess to the rest of the world, and the biblical mandate to care for the “least of these.”

4. Doing Real Good for Africa

Among the deluge of people working to do good for Africa there are many who do harm by their belief that they have the answers to Africa’s problems.  But there are also those that work amongst the people they are hoping to help because they believe that the answers to Africa’s challenges must come from Africans themselves.   These Numbers Have Faces, an organization that “invests in the future leaders of South Africa by empowering young people to reduce poverty in their own communities” is particularly commendable in this regard.  Their most significant contribution?  They working to put themselves out of business.  This fact alone puts them in the Top Ten.

3.  Providing Access to Clean Water

Running out of water during the coming millennium is going to be an even bigger deal that running out of oil.  One expert predicts that California will run out of water in 20 years.  FLOW, the documentary about the world’s dwindling water supply argue that “a combination of factors, including drought and skyrocketing demand, have created a looming global crisis.”  According to the filmmakers, “the demand for fresh water in our world over the next 30 years is far outstripping the supply. Not that the water isn’t somewhere on the planet still — but we have polluted it, diverted it, allowed it to get poisoned by seawater.”  And that’s only the part of the problem that affects us.  We’re more familiar with this statistic:  one-sixth of the world’s population doesn’t have access to clean water, and residents often have to travel miles to collect water that often makes them sick.  Charity Water has done more than any other organization to bring awareness to the problem, but organizations like Blood:Water Mission and Living Water International have contributed significantly to the number of people who now have access to clean water.

2.  Advent Conspiracy

Not only does Advent Conspiracy have one of the best names out there, but it has significantly changed the way many American Christians think about Christmas.  More than putting Christ back in Christmas, it has challenged Americans to rediscover the true significance and beauty of Jesus’ coming to earth: to live for others.  As one of its three founding pastors, Rick McKinley, says, “we don’t have to sit back to let consumerism tell the [Christmas] story.”  The Advent Conspiracy has spread to 1,700 of churches in at least 17 countries on four continents.  In the process, Advent Conspiracy has raised $2.5 million (by 2008) for Living Water International.  Along the way, it has done a great service by questioning the Great American Mythology that stuff equals love and happiness.

1. Everyday People

Christians showed up this decade.  From the tsunami to the homeless ministry down the street, folks were out in the street or opening their pocket books to those in need.  I don’t have any concrete numbers (besides the unprecedented giving following the tsunami) but I know it’s true, and I think you do too.