MEND (Meet Each Need with Dignity)
MEND (Meet Each Need with Dignity) serves as many as 31,000 individuals per month while remarkably keeping operating costs at or under 9%. It is the largest, most efficient and most comprehensive poverty-relief organization in the San Fernando Valley.
A volunteer-based organization since its inception in 1971, today MEND utilizes more than 3700 volunteers (and only 23 paid staffers) to implement its vast array of programs that provide food and clothing; medical, dental and vision care; job training; classes in English as a Second Language, Spanish, literacy, computers, office skills and sewing; math, reading and science tutoring for kids; hot meals, food, clothing and showers for the homeless, and a community wide adopt-a-family Christmas Program.
Although MEND is dedicated to relieving the effects of poverty, its underlying mission is to provide the means and the path to self-sufficiency... to break the bonds of poverty. MEND provides all the basic human needs vital to day-to-day survival as well as the education, training, opportunities and support essential to reducing, and hopefully, eliminating reliance on public and private assistance. And, it is all done in a manner that maintains the dignity and self-esteem of recipients.
With dignity and respect, powered by volunteers, MEND's mission is to break the bonds of poverty by providing basic human needs and a pathway to self-reliance.
