Throughout the United States, millions of people have been fed, sheltered and cared for thanks to donations of time and resources from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Worldwide, the Church spent $1.45 billion in 192 countries and territories in 2024. Through funding and commodities, the Church supports thousands of humanitarian projects around the world without regard to race, nationality or religious affiliation.
Millions of lives have also been blessed by the selfless service of the Church’s members.
The Church teaches — and its members affirm through their actions — that selfless service is how one can follow the Savior’s two great commandments — to love God and love one another.
“Service is an imperative for those who worship Jesus Christ,” President Dallin H. Oaks said in the October 1984 general conference.
President Oaks continued: “To followers who were vying for prominent positions in His kingdom, the Savior taught, ‘Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant’ (Matthew 20:27). On a later occasion, He spoke of ministering to the needs of the hungry, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned. He concluded that teaching with these words: ‘Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’ (Matthew 25:40).”
The following stories highlight a small portion of the variety and impact this charitable giving and Christlike service for others has had around the United States.
Food donations
In 2024 alone, 24.15 million meals were donated by the Church to those in need in the United States. This added up to 789 truckloads of food donated to 938 locations.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated 70,000 pounds of food — enough to fill two semitrucks full — to feed families who have food insecurity in Chicago, Illinois, in September 2025.
Volunteers from the Church and other organizations gathered Sept. 11-13 to organize the food into grocery bags and distribute the donations to more than 1,000 families.
Each family received two bags of dry goods and one bag of dairy products and frozen meat.
The service opportunity was held at Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters in Chicago, and coalition founder, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, was present at the event.
One mother who received food said it will be a bridge between grocery shopping and having to pay for other necessities.
“So I’m able to get other things instead of food with the money that I need,” said Shonnell Hampton. “It literally helps me put food on my table for my son.”
In 2024, the Church and World Food Programme celebrated 10 years of serving together with a gathering of Church and WFP leaders. Hundreds of young adults in Utah also assembled over 4,300 food boxes in one day for food pantries in the state.
Nearly 30,000 pounds of food arrived in Hightstown, New Jersey, on Aug. 25 as part of a donation from the Church to Rise, a nonprofit community service center.
The food — delivered on pallets from the Church’s Bishops’ Central Storehouse in Salt Lake City — stocked Rise’s food pantry, mobile markets and home delivery programs, directly benefiting the more than 700 families the organization serves weekly.
American Red Cross
Continuing a long-standing relationship, the Church announced a donation of $5.1 million to the American Red Cross on Aug. 7, 2025.
The donation was to support critical efforts, including equipment for new donor centers and programs supporting sickle cell disease treatment.
The Church’s donation supported Red Cross efforts and initiatives across the country, according to Heidi Ruster, CEO of the American Red Cross Utah/Nevada Region.
“But this collaboration goes far beyond funding,” she said. “It’s a testament to our shared dedication to serving and supporting those in need.”
A long-standing collaboration
On Thursday, March 21, 2024, Church leaders donated $7.35 million to the American Red Cross.
That day, during the meeting in the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City, leaders of both organizations also signed a new memorandum of understanding, further solidifying their long-standing collaboration.
This memorandum streamlines disaster response efforts by reducing service redundancies, designates Church buildings as potential shelters and enhances coordinated disaster planning through joint training and drills.
The Church has a long history of collaboration and donation with the American Red Cross, dating back to the late 1800s.
The Church is the largest single contributor to the American Red Cross blood drives. Annually, Latter-day Saints donate approximately 97,000 units of blood through thousands of drives. Over three decades, the American Red Cross has received more than 1 million units through some 37,000 drives hosted by the Church.
Other monetary donations have happened as well in the United States; for example, the Church gave $1 million to the American Red Cross to help after devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui in 2023 and contributed $1.2 million to help the American Red Cross and other nonprofit organizations after the wildfires in Southern California in 2025.
MyBaby4Me initiative
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has recognized the role of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for implementing a program that has reduced infant mortality rates in Black communities.
The director of the department’s program designed to integrate faith-based organizations in health care recognized and praised the Church at a Washington, D.C., event on April 12, 2024.
The MyBaby4Me initiative was born in Memphis, Tennessee, after Church leaders met with leaders of the NAACP to brainstorm ways to address infant mortality rates that are significantly elevated in a specific geographic area.
The MyBaby4Me initiative is a collaborative effort between the Church and A Chance To Learn. It offers classes for new and expectant mothers on health, nutrition, mental health, education and governmental resources and, where funds are available, may assist with transportation and food.
Families in Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee; Little Rock, Arkansas; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Charlotte, North Carolina, communities can receive this help thanks to the generous support of many community organizations that offer space, time and other resources to help mothers be successful.
LaToyia Dennis, CEO of A Chance to Learn, said the MyBaby4Me program is a lifeline for expectant and new mothers.
“A Chance to Learn agreed to work with the Church to lead this initiative because we share a common mission: to walk alongside families during one of the most critical seasons of life,” Dennis said. “Together, we are reducing maternal and infant health disparities, offering hope and creating healthier beginnings for moms and babies in our community.”
Working with the NAACP
The Church and NAACP have worked together in recent years in other ways as well throughout the United States. One example is hosting a Freedom School in Plano, Texas, to help middle schoolers learn about and connect with Black history. The Church provided one of its meetinghouses, meals and genealogy research help for students and their families.
Another example includes service in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the local chapter of the NAACP.
“When you see someone that is in need, when you see a community that is in need, we need to reach out,” said Matthew White, a member of the West Chester Ward in the Cincinnati Ohio North Stake. “As followers of Jesus Christ, we need to reach out, because that’s what he would do.”
In Atlanta, Georgia, service missionaries are leading a photo archiving project at Morehouse College. And in 2024, the Black 14 in collaboration with the Church donated 40,000 pounds of nonperishable food items to the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
Fostering self-reliance
Self-reliance allows people to better focus on the Savior’s two great commandments, to love God and to love one’s neighbor.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints offers free self-reliance courses to help people develop skills and build self-reliance through education, employment, finances and other topics.
Courses are completed individually or in small groups and focus on combining spiritual principles with practical skills. Job seekers, displaced persons and prospective students can all be blessed through these courses. Classes are Emotional Resilience, Personal Finances, Starting and Growing My Business, Education for Better Work, Find a Better Job and EnglishConnect.
How individuals and families have benefited
In New York, many people have seen their lives change through building their self-reliance.
Juanita Matthis, of the Westchester New York Stake, lived on the streets of New York and in a women’s shelter. After joining the Church, she took the Education for Better Work class. Then she took Personal Finances and Emotional Resilience.
“My life has not been the same since I came to these classes,” Matthis said.
When Sheyla Amador de Rivera came to the United States from the Dominican Republic at the age of 17, no one in her family could speak English. Now she teaches the EnglishConnect class in the Westchester Stake.
Rivera said God’s power plays an important role as people find strength in the Spirit while learning.
“If I had a megaphone, I’d tell everybody about EnglishConnect,” she said.
Self-reliance classes are becoming a part of the culture of the Liberty Missouri Stake, explained Lorin Walker and Jo Anne Walker, who were called about a year earlier to form a stake self-reliance committee.
Said Lorin Walker: “It’s not, ‘Oh this is a new program.’ It’s what we do around here.”
The emotional resilience course is by far the most popular, Jo Anne Walker said, and youth participants are leading the way in finishing.
In the West Jordan Utah Westland Stake, a group of women took the Emotional Resilience class together. Stake member Cary Johnson said many in the group had experienced grief, loss, health challenges and other issues but learned through the class how to rely on the Savior.
“Our Emotional Resilience experience became like the Waters of Mormon for each of us — ‘how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall sing to his praise forever’ (Mosiah 18:30),” she said.
Disaster response
After the largest fire in Texas history burned over 1.5 million acres of hay and left farmers and ranchers devastated in 2024, the Church immediately committed to donating 640 tons of hay to ranchers in the Texas panhandle — with transportation cost included.
The donated hay was shipped over a two-month period, with the Church setting aside more hay stores in the Church’s Bishops’ Central Storehouse in case of additional need, according to ChurchofJesusChrist.org
After flooding in Kentucky and West Virginia at the start of 2025, the Church sent 235,000 pounds of food and supplies to organizations on the ground to distribute to those in need.
Pallets of hygiene kits, cleaning supplies, food and water were delivered to some of the hardest-hit areas.
Service after disasters
Members of the Church donated their time to help with cleanup efforts in four cities after flooding in Kentucky and West Virginia in February 2025.
Huntington West Virginia Stake President James A. Wolfe said that as they worked through the challenges of another widespread flood event in the region, many of various faiths turned to God.
“For those that have lost loved ones, they seek comfort. For those that have had property damage, they ask for strength to move forward. For those that desire to help, they look for guidance on ways to assist. As Christians, we mourn with those that have been affected, and we strive to help as best we can,” he said.
‘Disaster relief work is truly the 99 seeking the one’
Other recent natural disasters in the United States have provided ample opportunity for members of the Church to show love for their neighbors.
More than 12,000 volunteers from the Church donated 170,000 hours to relief efforts at 5,700 homes impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton in the southeastern United States in October 2024.
“Disaster relief work is truly the 99 seeking the one,” said Elder John D. Amos, a General Authority Seventy who was living in Orlando, Florida, at the time and served there as an Area Seventy in the Church’s North America Southeast Area. Elder Amos was a member of the area’s Disaster Response Committee when the hurricanes hit.
“We gather in groups by the hundreds, wearing yellow shirts and carrying chain saws, ready to help those in need,” he said. “But we are not just removing trees — we are restoring hope. We are not just mucking out homes — we are sharing His light. We are not just tarping a roof — we are bringing peace. In doing so, we are living the great commandments to love God and love our neighbors.”
Service by Church members around the United States
One of the largest efforts in the United States to serve others each year is organized as part of the 9/11 Day of Service. In 2025, members of stakes around the country shoveled, raked, weeded, painted, cleaned headstones, honored first responders and more.
Over the last two years, women have found ways in their own communities to take part in the Church’s global initiative for women and children, which is being led by the Relief Society.
Alaina Nickerl, a student at Georgia State University, focused her capstone project on kangaroo mother care, or skin-to-skin contact, because of the initiative’s focus on maternal and newborn care.
Relief Society sisters in the Champaign Illinois Stake took part in a one-day, three-shift service project at the Eastern Illinois Food Bank. Nearly 600 Relief Society sisters gathered in Manchester, New Hampshire, where they donated over 1,200 blankets and 700 care kits to those in need. And Latter-day Saints in Detroit, Michigan, have a growing collaboration with Zaman International, whose work focuses on single mothers, refugee families and others navigating crises.
Youth and young adults are serving others in their communities — turning out in large numbers for Global Youth Service Day in April and for other opportunities to volunteer at other times during the year.
At the Church’s second annual Utah Area YSA Conference, in 2024, attendees contributed to several service projects between Logan and St. George throughout the three-day conference. They made blankets for people experiencing homelessness, packed emotional care kits, helped with local service projects and assembled meals to help children in need. Young adults gathered again in 2025 to participate in a similar service activity in Salt Lake City.
In Chandler, Arizona, what started as a simple activity where the youth from the stake could come and go ended as a day of service where families came and stayed. Youth and adults in the Cedar Mill Oregon Stake come together throughout the year for various service projects that benefit not only the unity of their stake but also those in their community. In Salt Lake City, young women have built a soccer team with their refugee neighbors.
Children serving
The Church’s youngest members are also serving. Primary children around the United States have answered the invitation by the Church’s Primary general presidency to hold a service activity in 2025.
Children in the San Rafael California Stake took the lead as they assembled backpacks, hygiene kits and more.
Two Primary children in Arizona collected 2,400 pairs of shoes for donation.
Primary children in the Garland Utah Stake collected donations for their own community and for children in Ghana.
In Texas, Primary children in the Alliance Texas Stake assembled and made Christmas ornaments, snack packs and other things for those in need.
And in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one family has worked on a goal to serve once a month with their Primary-age children.
Making comfort items and clothes
In Missouri, JustServe volunteers have created and donated hundreds of crocheted pickles for kids in foster care to enjoy.
Laura Gartin, program director of Live 2 Give Hope, said that kids will dig through a pickle barrel made by Latter-day Saint youth to find “their” pickle.
“The pickles give them comfort and joy,” she said. “When they are picking them out, they are so excited. It’s something unique and special that is just for them.”
In Oregon City, Oregon, on May 4, 2024, hundreds of women gathered to sew skirts for immigrants and refugees in their community, write Christmas cards for seniors, make sandwiches for a local homeless shelter and half a dozen other projects through JustServe.
JustServe clubs
And in high schools across the country, youth are starting JustServe clubs, focused on joining arm-in-arm to serve their communities.
Maci Whitesides in Orange County, California, got the idea to start a high school club from a youth leader. Many of her friends joined the club, and they recruited others by calling out, “Do service. It’s cool” at school events.
“Service makes me so happy,” Maci said. “Once you do it, you get it. I wanted so badly to tell everyone at high school that doing service will make you so happy.”
Clubs were started under the direction of Elder Mark A. Mortensen, an Area Seventy in the Church’s United States West Area, who saw the potential of service to transform youth.
“What they have done has created a movement,” said Elder Mortensen. “There has been a greater level of service, and it has given the youth a sense of belonging and purpose.”
Flooding cleanup
Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, started early for thousands of Latter-day Saints in Mesa, Arizona.
With little warning or time to prepare, they traveled more than 100 miles east to help neighbors in need. They showed up with shovels to Globe, Arizona, where flooding over the previous weekend claimed the lives of four people and left many homes destroyed or severely damaged.
Fred Ashby, a JustServe specialist in the Mesa Arizona Kimball East Stake, estimated that 4,000 people volunteered to help clean up after the storms and subsequent destruction.
“It was pretty remarkable,” Ashby said.
The volunteers organized into groups of about 300 people and went door-to-door, knocking and asking how they could help. They then spent the day shoveling mud out of people’s homes and offering comfort where they could.
“One woman had 4 feet of water and 2 feet of mud in her home,” Ashby said. “It was a disaster.”
Even with the large numbers who served to clean out many homes across the community, Ashby said the biggest impact was on the people’s hearts.
“We may not have done much. It was more for me — for us — than anyone else. It changed our hearts.”
