A Message from Our President
Each of the many individuals and organizations listed in the donor recognition categories below played
a very important role in enabling us to envision new ways that we can grow to meet needs.
Thanks to you, we look forward to a very exciting 28th year of serving people in need in
Northeast Florida.
We spent the past year nurturing several new directions for Lutheran Social Services that
are resulting in exciting new programs and campaigns this year. Without your help, our vision
for the future would be constrained by our past realities. Increased support by you, our donors,
has enabled us to plan boldly for how we can best bring hope to the people in need coming to us
for help.
International Adoption Program
After much preliminary work, we finally received our certification from the Department of
Children and Families to handle international adoptions. This allows us to join a national
collaboration of 30 Lutheran social ministry organizations that are active in both international
and domestic adoptions and who are members of Lutheran Services in America (LSA). Lutherans and
others who know about Lutheran social ministry organizations have occasionally asked us whether we
could help them adopt internationally. We are proud to now be able to help find permanent families
for children from nine countries.
As part of a faith-based network, we are motivated to service on behalf of those without a
voice—children who need permanent families—and on behalf of loving people hoping to adopt
a child to become part of their home. Collectively, LAN member agencies place thousands of children into
loving adoptive homes every year.
The Sharing Place Thrift Store
We researched the possibility of opening a thrift shop to meet three needs – to collect
household items to help us set up new homes for arriving refugees, provide for the needs of our
ACE customers, and help diversify our revenue stream to make up for decreasing government funding.
In February, we open (or perhaps we should say re-open) The Sharing Place Thrift Store located in
the same building as our main offices at 4615 Philips Highway.
Even as we seek to serve more people through this newest venture, we are building on our past work.
In the past, LSS successfully operated as many as three Sharing Place Thrift Stores located on the
Westside, in Arlington and in Downtown Jacksonville.
Food Bank Awareness Campaign
We hired Jane Jordan & Associates to conduct a capital campaign feasibility study to
determine our ability to raise a minimum of $8 million to increase the network capacity to
recover and distribute more nutritious food throughout 18 Northeast Florida counties. What we
learned is that before we embark on a capital campaign, we need to increase awareness of the
Food Bank and why it is critical to our community’s ability to take care of its most vulnerable
citizens.
This past fall, On Ideas, a local advertising and public relations agency that works with major
clients such as Winn-Dixie, offered to take the Food Bank on as a pro bono client to develop a
brand awareness campaign for us. The agency is already hard at work and has set a goal of unveiling
the campaign, complete with a name change for the Food Bank, by this coming fall to coincide with
America’s Second Harvest’s marketing and public relations push during Hunger Action Month
in September.
We count our blessings each day for the generous support we receive from the local community,
to which the following list of financial donors attests, and for the thousands of selfless volunteers
who help us in our work as well. I invite you to read more about our work in our 2006-07 Annual Report.
It is always our intent to appropriately and accurately recognize each and every gift given to LSS.
If we have overlooked or incorrectly listed your gift, please accept our sincere apology. We encourage
you to let us know so that we can correct our records by contacting Karen Rieley, director of
advancement, 904.730.8281.
