Hope Rising

February 2026:

Stories of Transformation

Your partnership is writing stories of redemption across the Valley. This month,
meet Rosa and Daniel—and see the difference you made in 2025.

In this issue:

She Lost Everything to Addiction. You Gave Her a Second Chance: After years of failed attempts at sobriety, Rosa finally found lasting recovery through your generosity.

Your Compassion Reaches the Forgotten: Daniel thought nobody knew he existed until your partnership proved him wrong.

Love Your Neighbor in 2026: What does it look like to Love Your Neighbor at Phoenix Rescue Mission?

The Gift of Legacy: How wise giving creates lasting transformation.

You Made This Possible in 2025: Your partnership created transformation across the Valley.

She Lost Everything to Addiction.

You Gave Her a Second  Chance

After years of failed attempts at sobriety, Rosa finally found lasting recovery through your generosity.

Rosa tried to get clean more times than she can count. Each attempt ended the same way: a few weeks of progress followed by relapse and deeper despair. Addiction had cost her an apartment, a job, and custody of her two sons.

By her thirties, Rosa had cycled through emergency programs and short-term services across the Valley. Nothing stuck. The underlying pain that drove her to use never got addressed. She’d sober up just long enough to lose hope again.

When Rosa arrived at Phoenix Rescue Mission’s Changing Lives Center for Women and Children, she almost didn’t stay. She’d failed so many times before.

But your partnership made this time different.

“The short programs just dried me out,” Rosa says. “Here, they actually helped me understand why I was using in the first place.”

Your generosity funded the trauma-informed counseling that helped Rosa process childhood wounds she’d numbed for decades. Your support provided life skills classes where she learned to budget, interview, and plan for a future she’d stopped imagining. Your investment kept the doors open month after month as Rosa slowly rebuilt her sense of worth.

“For the first time, I started believing I could actually change,” she says. “People here treated me like I had value, even when I couldn’t see it myself.”

Today, Rosa works at a local healthcare facility and rents her own apartment. She visits her sons regularly, rebuilding trust one conversation at a time. She also volunteers, mentoring women who remind her of her former self.
“I tell them the same thing someone told me,” Rosa says. “You’re not too broken. You just need time and people who won’t give up on you.”

Because of your faithful partnership, Rosa found both.

Today, Rosa is happy, healthy, and reconnecting with family.

*Name changed to protect privacy.

Your Compassion Reaches the Forgotten

“I figured I’d die out there and no one would notice.”

Daniel thought nobody knew he existed until your partnership proved him wrong.

Daniel spent two years sleeping behind a strip mall, convinced he’d been forgotten. Mental illness made navigating social services feel impossible. Addiction made everything worse. He stopped trying.

“I figured I’d die out there and nobody would notice,” Daniel says.

Then a Phoenix Rescue Mission Street Outreach Case Manager found him during a morning route through his neighborhood. They offered water and something Daniel hadn’t experienced in years: a conversation without judgment.

That first meeting didn’t lead anywhere. Neither did the second. But your partnership kept the team coming back, building trust.

On the third visit, Daniel asked about getting into a program.

“They never pressured me,” he recalls. “They just kept showing up. That’s what finally got through to me.”

Today, Daniel’s life has changed. He’s even reconnecting with a brother he hasn’t spoken to in years and learning to manage his mental health with proper support.

Your generosity funds the persistent outreach that meets people like Daniel where they are. Some neighbors need someone to come find them before they can find hope.

Street Outreach Teams funded by donors like you bring hope directly to those who can’t seek help themselves.

*Name changed to protect privacy.

Love Your Neighbor in 2026

What does it look like to Love Your Neighbor at Phoenix Rescue Mission?

When you see someone living on the street, love means seeing them as a real person—someone’s son or daughter, someone Jesus died for.

Many ask themselves, “What can I do to help?” As one individual, making a difference takes enormous time and effort. But through your partnership with Phoenix Rescue Mission, you make a significant difference. You let us love your neighbor for you.

We meet people where they are—whether they’re food insecure, experiencing homelessness, or ready for residential recovery. Your partnership funds case management that helps people get what they don’t even know they need. We’re uniquely able to serve wherever someone is in their journey.

This year, we’re asking you to join us in loving your neighbor through strategic generosity. As you plan your 2026 giving, consider how asset-based gifts can expand your impact. Together, we’ll provide Christ-centered, life-transforming solutions to more men, women, and families across the Valley. Thank you for loving your neighbor through Phoenix Rescue Mission.

God Bless,

Ken Brissa

Chief Executive Officer

The Gift of Legacy

How wise giving creates lasting transformation.

Giving appreciated assets creates greater impact while providing significant tax advantages. Because when you donate stock instead of cash, you avoid capital gains taxes entirely. This means more of your wealth funds year-long residential recovery programs that lead to lasting transformation.

Qualified Charitable Distributions from IRAs offer another powerful option. If you’re 70½ or older, you can direct up to $111,000 annually from your IRA to Phoenix Rescue Mission without adding to your taxable income. And if you’re 73 or older, your gift also satisfies your required minimum distribution.

Donor-advised funds provide a third pathway. A single contribution in a high-income year can fund multiple years of giving while maximizing your immediate tax benefit.

These strategies let you give more generously while stewarding resources wisely. Your partnership will meet immediate needs while creating encounters between the living God who transforms lives and your struggling neighbors in desperate need. As you plan your 2026 giving, consider how asset-based donations can expand your impact across the Valley.

For more information about giving through appreciated assets, contact Greg Forney at 602-346-3389 or gforney@phxmission.org.

Through your giving, you create new legacies where people follow Christ.

You MADE THIS POSSIBLE IN 2025

Homelessness in the Valley has grown 31% in five years.
Your partnership is helping combat it.

Because you invested generously, thousands discovered transformation is possible.

Your 2025 generosity proved change is possible. Your 2026 partnership will write even more stories of redemption.
As 2025 closed, the numbers tell a story of your faithfulness: