Change...Not Charity; Community Development Model
Bob Lupton has been working for over 30 years at a model of community development that is focused on change not charity. Dr. Lupton’s work through his organization, FCS Urban Ministries is a community development organization. It focuses its work almost exclusively in four adjacent urban Atlanta neighborhoods: Summerhill, Grant Park, East Lake and South Atlanta. With a staff of sixty, most of whom live in these neighborhoods, FCS constructs housing, operates businesses and education programs for at-risk children, and provides other human services. It works closely with churches to mobilize people and resources that bring hope and creative new options to the city. Attracting middle-income people of faith to relocate in urban communities has been one of the ministry's most significant efforts. It has developed four mixed-income subdivisions and is currently implementing this re-neighboring strategy throughout the entire South Atlanta community. Its goal is to create in the midst of urban blight wholesome places for families to flourish.
His model assumes that the poor can and must play a significant role in bettering their own circumstances and the transformation of their own communities. They give nothing away. Even their food pantries are organized into food Co-Ops in which the participants pay a small membership fee, organize the food distribution and, in the process, create their own caring community.
Last year we brought Dr. Lupton up to the Kansas City area to meet with a number of interested organizations as well as a large group of interested leaders from Independence, MO. In a kind of next step follow-up to his trip here we recently took a group from Independence to Atlanta to see his work first-hand.
Our goal is to expose key leaders from various sectors across the Kansas City area to community development/transformation models like Dr. Lupton's and glean insights and advice from his experience. More information about Dr. Lupton and his work is available on line at http://www.fcsministries.org/about.htm.