September 2026:

Phoenix Rescue Mission – Transforming Lives. Transforming the Valley.

Your compassionate support is helping neighbors across the Valley find more than just meals; at Phoenix Rescue Mission, they’re encountering hope, help, and the chance to transform their lives.

In this issue:

A Hunger Action Month Story: Carlos

Three Ways You Can Fight Hunger This Month

You Gave Adrian and Elaine More than a Meal

Save the Date for Donor-Advised Fund Day, October 8

From Ken: Because of You

A Hunger Action Month Story:  Carlos

Carlos came for food. You gave him a way off the streets.

For 13 years, the streets were the only home Carlos had.

He never stopped working, cutting lawns and repairing homes across the Valley, but his addiction kept him on the streets and away from the people who loved him.

Carlos was worn down, out of road, and almost out of hope.

Neighbors facing food insecurity come to Phoenix Rescue Mission’s Hope for Hunger Food Bank looking for food.

Carlos had been getting by on the kindness of a woman who let him wash up and sleep in her car in exchange for yard work. One morning, hungry and worn down, he walked into our Hope for Hunger Food Bank looking for something to eat.

Our team at the Hunger for Hope Food Bank did more than hand Carlos a box of groceries. They told Carlos about the Mission’s Transformations Recovery Program and started the paperwork on the spot. By that afternoon, Carlos had a place to start again.

When Carlos arrived, he did not know what to expect, but he had always been a man who finished what he started, so he chose to work through whatever came. He let go of the drugs he had leaned on for years and held on to the people walking beside him.

For the first time, the Bible he had read before began to make sense. Carlos came to know Jesus in a personal way, and now he reads Scripture every day and asks God for wisdom in how to live.

A year sober, Carlos is almost unrecognizable. He arrived weighing just 146 pounds, worn down to nearly nothing. Today, he is healthy and strong, with a new smile on the way from dental care and other medical issues finally cared for, all through your generous support and compassion for neighbors in the Valley.

Carlos has graduated from our program and is training for a new career, and he has reconnected with his children and grandchildren. He still goes back to the streets, sharing his own lunch with men sleeping at the bus stop and telling them where to find the help that rescued him.

Your gifts are the reason our doors stay open, and the reason a worn-down man can walk in for food and walk out toward a whole new life.

The Bible says, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat” (Matthew 25:35, NIV). This September, your generosity is how that promise reaches the next neighbor still standing where Carlos once stood.

Thank you for making a new life possible for Carlos, and for every person who walks through our doors because of you.

Three Ways You Can  Figth Hunger This Month

September is Hunger Action Month, and your neighbors across the Valley need you. Here are three ways to step in right now:

• • Become a monthly partner. A gift each month keeps food on the shelves all year long, not only when the need makes headlines.
• • Host a drive. Rally your family, your church, or your workplace to gather groceries and other crucial goods for neighbors facing empty cupboards, and bring your perishable and/or non-perishable donations to the Hope for Hunger Food Bank.
• • Volunteer at the Hope for Hunger Food Bank. Spend a morning sorting and handing out food to the people who need it most. It’s an experience you will not forget.

However you choose to step in, you are answering hunger with hope. Visit phoenixrescuemission.org/get-involved to get started today.

You Gave Adrian and Elaine More than a Meal

Adrian and Elaine went to our partner, St. Mary’s Food Bank, for one thing: food. They were living outside in the heat, simply trying to get through the week.

While they were there, our Phoenix Rescue Mission case manager sat down with them and started asking about their lives. That conversation opened doors neither of them expected.

The team helped Elaine begin a housing application and gather the documents she needed. They learned Adrian is a veteran, something he never knew qualified him for help, and connected him to veteran services, an eye clinic for new glasses, and a housing waitlist.

Because of you, a trip for groceries became the first step toward a home they can share. Thank you for making stories like this possible.

Save the Date for Donor-Advised Fund Day, October 8

Leverage Your Giving for Maximum Impact

DAF Day is October 8, a national day for turning donor-advised funds into real help. If you give through a donor-advised fund, you have already set that money aside to do good.

Recommending a grant to the Mission turns it into stocked shelves and a way home for your neighbors in the Valley, and you do not have to wait until October 8 to do it.

Prefer to Give Directly?

Your gift may also qualify for the Arizona Charitable Tax Credit. You can redirect what you owe the state, up to $506 ($1,009 if filing jointly), to help our hurting neighbors.

From Ken: For the Least of These…

Hunger has a way of stealing more than a meal. It steals dignity, and it whispers to a person that they no longer matter.

Scripture tells us that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Christ Himself (Matthew 25:40). When you fill a shelf here, you are doing exactly that.

Carlos knows what it is to be hungry. For years he lived on the streets, until the morning he walked into our Hope for Hunger Food Bank looking for food. Thanks to you, he found something far greater there: a way off the streets.

That is the Gospel at work, and it reminds people they are worth fighting for.

September is Hunger Action Month, and I thank you for feeding your neighbors in body and in spirit, and for sharing the love of Christ with every gift.

God Bless,
Ken Brissa
Chief Executive Officer