The Cooperative Ministry continues to help others and change lives in the Midlands

For 38 years The Cooperative Ministry has served the Midlands working poor and those in acute crisis, helping with short-term crisis assistance toward long-term sustainability.

I am proud to serve as chairman of The Cooperative Ministry’s board of directors.

As a third-generation owner of Lizard’s Thicket restaurants I’ve always been a champion of people who work hard and want to improve their lives. Our company likes to help people who — despite struggling a bit — want to help themselves.

A wonderful match

Several years ago when I was invited to join The Cooperative Ministry’s board of directors, it was a wonderful match of personal and corporate objectives. The Cooperative Ministry is an organization that meets people in crisis, stands in the gap with them, and offers help with self-sustainability.

Various services

In March when the government, businesses and organizations evaluated safe strategies within the new environment of the COVID-19 pandemic, Beth Irick, the CEO of The Cooperative Ministry, immediately pulled together the staff and board of directors for consultation.

She also communicated with our area’s health community.

Rather than close its doors to those in need in our community, The Cooperative Ministry staff reorganized the safe delivery of its services to protect clients, clothing bank donors and volunteers.

Clients are now served through internet forms, email, and telephone conversations; appointments for crisis assistance are scheduled through the internet. If a client doesn’t have internet access, they can call the office and staff will assist them with online form completion; meanwhile, crisis appointments occur by telephone.

Since March alone The Cooperative Ministry has received more than 2,700 requests for help with basic human needs. Of those requesting assistance, 74% have indicated that their need relates in some way to COVID-19.

COVID-19 also occurred during this year’s tax season, which is when The Cooperative Ministry worked with trained volunteers and community venues to help thousands of low- and moderate-income households with free tax preparation and filing.

Though our satellite locations were closed, many volunteer tax preparers worked from home assisting clients, with The Cooperative Ministry building as the information collection hub.

More than 7,400 returns were prepared this year under the tax assistance program.

We should be proud

Can you tell that I’m more than a little proud?

As a member of our community, you should be, too.

You have partnered with The Cooperative Ministry to help others in our community.

Many of you passed along your stimulus checks to The Cooperative Ministry.

Churches provided extra financial assistance.

Groups and individuals organized clothing and food drives: one family took our grocery list, went to a local grocery store and then delivered an SUV full of groceries to our clothing bank entrance.

Record donations of used cars given to our Car Program have been sold to generate much-needed cash to help others.

A Richland County grant of $99,000 increased our coronavirus-affected Crisis Assistance service level by 300% in July and August.

New programs

Even as we continued serving others we have launched two new services to help struggling people get back on their feet.

The Career Improvement Service will financially help clients obtain their GED, a certification needed for a better job or expungement of a South Carolina record that may be impeding a job.

The Financial Empowerment Program will pair coronavirus-affected clients with a volunteer certified Financial Health Coach for up to six months.

Coaches will offer education and training toward helping clients with budgeting, improving credit scores and creating an emergency savings plan.

Need is great

I am thankful for The Cooperative Ministry and commend it to you for your holiday donations. We don’t know what this winter will bring, but we always see a heightened need for assistance; this year we expect the need to be greater than what we usually experience.

With your continued help The Cooperative Ministry will be here to meet the need head-on. And because The Cooperative Ministry is a debt-free organization, 89 cents of every dollar donated goes to direct program services within our local community.

For information on donating, go to www.coopmin.org.

Thank you so much for believing in our mission, and I hope you and yours have a blessed Thanksgiving holiday.

Robert Williams III is board chairman for The Cooperative Ministry and restaurant operations manager for the Lizard’s Thicket restaurant chain.

This story was originally published November 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM.