Georgia
and I founded HMI in 1984. She succeeded me as President in 1994, and I returned the favor in 2008. Georgia's
primary personal involvement through the years has been as director of HMI's Loving Care Early Learning Center,
which daily ministers to up to one hundred families in Paterson's inner city (see photo, bottom of this page).
Over the past 25 years HMI has reached out by word and deed to those who live on the underside
of history: enabling young mothers to resume employment by providing infant and toddler care; giving inner city pre-schoolers
and kindergarteners a "head start;" teaching functionally illiterate young adults to read and write; offering English
as a Second Language to newly arrived immigrants from Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia; and discipling community
college students.
HMI took the lead in establishing the community
organization Leadership Paterson, and the Citizens' Alliance for a Drug-Free Paterson. Over the years HMI has worked closely with
Jubilee Employment in mediating job searches; with Habitat for Humanity to provide affordable housing; with the Community
Health Center on behalf of those who lack medical insurance, and with the YMCA in a variety of ministries to youth.
Georgia and I share a passion for social justice, based
on Isaiah 42:1-4. In 1996 Georgia was elected to the Passaic County Board of Chosen Freeholders -- the second woman
and the first African-American of either gender to be elected to that office. She served as a Freeholder (known elsewhere
as County Commissioner) for six years. For two of those years her colleagues elected her chairperson.
Both of us are officially retired now, our staff has dispersed, so HMI's
ministries are now limited to our personal outreach, which continues to center in and around Paterson's inner city. Georgia
serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Crossroads Center. I facilitate our local church's intentional disciplemaking
initiative. In addition, I write -- The Renewal of All Things will be published in the summer of 2009 -- and
mentor younger missionaries via the Internet.
We need and welcome donations to our continued outreach. If you would like to help
us, you can make your check or money order to Holistic Ministries (or simply HMI) 401 East 40th Street, Paterson, NJ 07504.
You will be receipted. All donations are tax deductible in the USA.
For photos depicting some aspects of HMI's outreach, click on the "Holistic Ministries Photos" button below. To
read an article describing Holistic Ministries that appeared in Transformation magazine, click "The Paterson
Paradigm."
