International Samaritan

International Samaritan partners with victims of severe poverty living in garbage dump communities by providing access to education, housing, food, and medical care. International Samaritan encourages everyone to follow the example of the Good Samaritan, who stopped, and changed a life. Garbage dump communities are filled with men, women, children, and infants who live their lives and scrap together and existence in the most horrific conditions. Displaced by war, civil unrest, natural disasters, and other circumstances beyond their control, they need us to stop and help. Annually, we serve over 25,000 individuals across the globe. The families that we partner with in garbage dump communities have higher incomes, greater safety, better health care, and higher levels of education due to our programs. Through the contributions of generous donors and the hands of volunteers working with local partners, IS has helped tens of thousands of people on their journey.

OUR VISION Is of a time when the garbage dumps of developing nations are no longer homes to human be

Goal One: To provide and sustain holistic scholarships to children whose family members work in the informal sector surrounding garbage dump communities to help them graduate and obtain good jobs.

Goal Two: To bring fresh water solutions and/or to build "family life centers" in the communities we serve.

Goal Three: To create year-long, meaningful partnerships between schools and churches in the United States and our scholars in developing nations to learn, serve, and grow together.

In October of 2022, two or three leaders from each of our teams in six nations spent a week at a leadership development retreat in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. This gave leaders the opportunity to see the work being done in a local community like theirs and to use those reflections to help refine our strategic plan, share best practices, and sharpen our budget for the coming fiscal year. We also believe that our people work best when they are using their strengths. All of team member in all six nations take the StrengthFinder assessment when they join our team, and we have a coach lead each team in a retreat at the beginning of the year to reflect on their strengths and the strengths of their teammate in a shared effort to help each person commit to a body of work that best uses their unique gifts and passions.

On March 28, 2020, less than three weeks after the pandemic was declared, our Board of Trustees met and concluded that we need to take on the cost of providing food to 900+ families in our six communities to help them survive the pandemic. At an average cost of $100 per family, this was an unanticipated addition of $80,000 per month to our budget, which we thought would last three to six months at most. Over the last year, we saw dramatic improvements in the overall health and well-being of our families because of the additional food support they received from us. To continue financially supporting these efforts, we have asked the parents of students who have traveled with us and the civic leaders of the cities in which those schools are based to help give and raise "transformational" gifts to continue supporting holistic scholarships with this much needed food support included. Last year alone, we increased our number of transformational givers from 6 to 17. We also saw in 2021 the way in which fresh water can exponentially improve a community when our board and two of our long-time donors built two wells to bring fresh water to the community surrounding the garbage dump in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As part of our strategic planning retreat in 2022, our board committed to doing the same in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, despite the fact that the cost would be much high because of the difficult terrain conditions there. Again, we went to our network of school partners and civic leaders across the United States, asking them to run, walk or donate to the IntSam Global 5K to raise $250,000 to complete this project. We are well on our way there.