History
Morgan's mission was started originally as an urban outreach ministry, in 1902, of Morgan Methodist Chapel, Boston, Massachusetts, which was pastored by Reverend Edgar J. Helms, a Methodist minister and early social innovator. Helms and his congregation collected used household goods and clothing being discarded in wealthier areas of the city, then trained and hired the unemployed or bereft to mend and repair them. The products were then redistributed to those in need or were given to the needy people who helped to repair them. In 1915, Helms hosted a visit to Morgan Memorial by representatives of a workshop mission in Brooklyn, NY, and they learned about the innovative programs and the operating techniques of the "Morgan Memorial Cooperative Industries and Stores, Inc." Helms was subsequently invited to visit in New York. Out of these exchanges came Brooklyn's willingness to adopt and adapt the Morgan Memorial way of doing things, while Helms was persuaded that Brooklyn's name for its workshop, "Goodwill Industries," was a marked improvement over the Morgan Memorial name. Thus was officially born Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries, and that, plus Brooklyn's interest and ties, became the foundation on which Goodwill Industries was to be built as an international movement. (From For the Love of People, by John Fulton Lewis.)
Today Goodwill has become a $4 billion non-profit organization. Helms described Goodwill as an "industrial program as well as a social service enterprise...a provider of employment, training and rehabilitation for people of limited employability, and a source of temporary assistance for individuals whose resources were depleted."
Charity Watch rates the Goodwill Industries an "A".
Read more about this topic: Goodwill Industries
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