Love your neighbor as yourself.

Galatians 5:14

When we are Ready to Give, we begin to see our invisible brothers and sisters. We step outside of ourselves and become present in the world around us. As Rescue Alliance states, “by taking the time to look people in the eye, flash a smile, and interact for even a moment, you show respect and care to men and women suffering on the street” and, ultimately, recognize the humanity of all people as we have all been called to do.

Ready to Give acknowledges that the complex challenge of homelessness took a lot of time to create and it will take a lot of time to resolve. Things that matter move at the speed of trust, and we help New Yorkers build trust and the willingness to widen our circles of compassion over time. There are plenty of urgent solutions that need to happen overnight. But we also need diversity in our solutions so that they reflect the complexity of the challenges. At the end of the day, more people need to acknowledge the humanity of people experiencing homelessness. Then, we will begin to see solutions take hold. As we acknowledge the structural, systemic, and personal challenges that lead to homelessness, we first recognize that each person has a story, and we learn that story.

Willie Dwayne Francois III shares, “Nothing in our world can be changed [unless] we courageously face it - raise hard questions, assess our complicity in the problem, and wage a new sense of how we embody the solutions. No political messiah or economic savior is parading toward us, trumpeting a utopian agenda to change the material conditions of our communities. We are the ones for whom we are waiting. We are evidence of hope in this world.”

With overwhelming issues, solutions can be difficult to see.

Ready to Give shows people how to “start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.”

Inspiration for Ready to Give