How Your Gift Helps

In 2011, the Development Office of Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries is focusing on four key areas of need that represent a broad range of ministries touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of persons.

These key areas are:

Diakon Senior Living Services Benevolent Care Endowments

Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries is deeply proud of its assurances including our "benevolent care promise."

That promise ensures that residents who have exhausted their financial resources through circumstances beyond their control or whose cost of care exceeds reimbursement, are able to receive continued housing, care, and support services for the rest of their lives within our senior living communities. With our "Many Hands acting as One Heart," Diakon continues to care for our older neighbors through acts of service.

More information about local benevolent care and supporting these funds at individual Diakon Senior Living Communities can be found on each of the communities' Make a Gift pages:

• Buffalo Valley Lutheran Village
• Cumberland Crossings
• Frey Village
• Diakon Senior Living - Hagerstown
• Luther Crest
• Manatawny Manor
• Ohesson
• Pocono Lutheran Village
• The Lutheran Home at Topton
• Twining Village

Diakon Wilderness Center Flight Program

Based at the Diakon Wilderness Center, the Flight Program is a mentoring and training program designed to help young men, most of whom were served by youth programs but who have aged out of those services, become contributing members of society. Youths in Flight voluntarily participate in the program, accepting the challenging steps they need to take to become successful. The youths rely on one another and on center staff members for support.

Young men served by Flight are in college, in technical schools, or at work, making huge strides to becoming adults of whom we can all be proud. Your gift to Flight helps in the following ways:

• $500 will support volunteer/mentoring activities for Flight students for one weekend.
• $250 will support the cost of transportation to and from job interviews and college-entrance activities for a Flight student for one month.
• $100 will feed Flight students for a weekend as they participate in Flight team-building, volunteer, and counseling activities.
• $50 will help a Flight student obtain documents (birth certificate, driver’s license) needed to obtain gainful employment.
• Your gift of any size will help support The Diakon Wilderness Center Flight Program.

Diakon Kathryn's Kloset

Based in West Baltimore but serving organizations throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, the East Coast, and even nationally and internationally, Diakon Kathryn's Kloset secures corporate donations of new personal-care products, educational materials, and other items and provides them free of charge to non-profit groups that, in turn, distribute them without cost to people in need in their local communities. Typically, the products have minor cosmetic defects and would otherwise have been destroyed.

Annually, this innovative program touches the lives of between 500,000 and one million people. Your gift to Diakon Kathryn’s Kloset helps in the following ways:

• $500 will help transport a truckload of goods from a manufacturer to Diakon Kathryn’s Kloset.
• $250 will help support the cost of maintaining the warehouse utilities for a week.
• $50 will help provide a school with donated educational materials such as software and books.
• Your gift of any size will help support Diakon Kathryn's Kloset.

Diakon Adoption & Foster Care

Since 1868, Diakon has been serving the needs of children and youths. Our adoption and foster care program, in many respects, is a direct descendant of the Tressler and Topton children’s homes. Always innovative, the program has been a national model for adoption and foster-care services for children and youths with special needs. Your generous gift to Diakon Adoption & Foster Care helps in the following ways:

• $500 will provide support (counseling, child care etc.) to families who have adopted a child or older youth with special needs.
• $250 will provide pajamas, tooth brush, change of clothing, and a duffel bag for one child in an emergency placement.
• $100 will help pay for an after-school or summer program, which can help to bring normalcy to a child's life.
• $50 will provide the materials for a "Life Book," which chronicles through information and photographs a child’s life.
• Your gift of any size will help Diakon Adoption & Foster Care.

Please contact us if you have questions about these programs or are interested in other ways you can support or endow ministries that, since 1868, have been making a remarkable difference in the lives of children, families, and older adults.