Action Ministries' Smart Lunch Smart Kid

Since its founding in 1963, Action Ministries has worked to provide help and hope to the hurting. Our original mission was to assist the Methodist congregations of in-town Atlanta as they addressed the economic and racial change swirling around them. An increased emphasis was eventually placed on churches located near large public housing projects. Over the years, Action Ministries has become a leader in helping urban congregations embrace diversity.

In addition to church-based outreach programs, we helped spawn neighborhood groups that brought about change. Among them were the Inman Park Community Restoration Association, Home Park Community Improvement Association, Northside Shepherd Center, and Home Park Child Care Center.

The geographic impact of Action Ministries has expanded over time as we also opened or operated community programs for poor and homeless persons in Athens, Atlanta, Augusta, Decatur (Breakthru House), Gainesville, and Rome. The strategy of our local ministries has been to target unmet community needs, such as serving hot meals in a community kitchen in Athens, providing emergency assistance with financial counseling in Gainesville, providing household necessities through a furniture bank in Augusta, supplying the Rome community through a food pantry network, and transforming lives at the Breakthru House in Decatur. Since our founding, our ministries have grown to service more areas.

The breadth of our ministries reflects our commitment to pull people back from the brink of hunger, homelessness, and addiction and equip them to prosper. Action Ministries was one of the first, and remains among the largest, Georgia recipients of HUD funding to help the homeless become stable through transitional housing and support services.

Action Ministries is an independent 501(c)3 non-profit with a $5 million annual budget and a cadre of nearly 5,200 volunteers from congregations, businesses, and community organizations. Though we are independent and quite ecumenical, we have deep roots in the United Methodist Church. As such, we celebrate a covenantal relationship with the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church in ministry to the homeless, poor, and others in need throughout Georgia.