An Afternoon At MUST Ministries

Earlier this year, Social Network MD and our friends at Financing Your Way spent an afternoon at MUST Ministries’ Donation Center in Marietta, GA. MUST Ministries is a non-profit, faith-based organization helping people in our community break the cycle of poverty and homelessness. MUST provides basic necessities such as food, clothes, and housing, free of charge to its clients.

In preparation to be redistributed to MUST clients, we were tasked with evaluating and counting and hundreds upon hundreds of shoes. It could have been thousands! Shoes of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some were brand-spanking-new (with tags) others were gently used and others were a bit rough around the edges. MUST Ministries strives to provide clothing to its clients that are the highest quality possible that can be worn for a job interview or a day at school. So, as we sorted by sizes, we also accessed the quality of the shoes. Many were in great shape and went in the “keep” pile while others went to the “recycle” pile.

They recycle shoes, you may ask? And the answer is YES! One of the coolest things is that nothing goes to waste at MUST Ministries. The shoes that went into the recycle pile will either go to another organization (that can accept and distribute the lower quality shoes) or they are sent off to literally be recycled, which is so much better than tossing in the trash!

Not only was our time at MUST Ministries a great way to give back to our community, but it was also a great team-building exercise. It was really interesting to see how each team member contributed to the task at hand. Our process-oriented and analytics folks instantly went into planning mode on how to most efficiently complete the task. There were shelves upon shelves of tubs full of shoes. Some way up high, some overflowing with shoes, and others completely empty.

Once the plan was devised, we all got to work...some moving the tubs from the shelves to the floor, others checking the shoes for quality and then others were counting and marking each tub with an inventory number, using Sharpies and Post-It Notes of course! Then, the tubs went back on the shelves in an organized fashion. And the shoes that didn’t pass the quality-assurance test were sent to the recycle box!

All in all, we are super impressed with MUST Ministries as an organization and really blown away by all that goes into maintaining its donation center as well as the other programs MUST offers to its clients.

Our afternoon was an afternoon well spent and we’d like to thank MUST Ministries for hosting us and for all that they do to support our local community.

MUST accepts food and clothing donations as well as items like blankets, new toys, towels, books, and toiletry items five days a week at its main Donation Center at 1280 Field Pkwy, Marietta, GA 30066. In addition, they provide housing to people who need time and assistance to recover from financial disaster, discouragement or job loss, and workforce development programs so that its clients approach the workforce with marketable skills. They also have food pantries for families and at-risk students in local schools that need supplemental nutrition that they may not be able to get at home.

To learn more about MUST Ministries, visit www.mustministries.org or call (770)-427-9862.