About Sisters Care
The Story Behind Sisters Care
Life has taught me that hardships can come in many forms.
Sometimes they look like not having enough money to make it through the month. Sometimes they look like losing a job, stretching food until the next paycheck, or learning how to turn what you have into something that will carry you a little farther. Sometimes they come as a power outage, a natural disaster, an unexpected financial crisis, or simply a time when the resources you have always counted on are no longer available.
I have experienced some of those hardships myself.
As a student and young adult, I had to learn how to budget, make difficult choices, and be resourceful. At one point, I worked part-time as a caterer. When leftover food was available for us to take home, I was grateful for it. I had to learn how to turn those leftovers into other meals because there were times when I simply did not have much food at home.
My faith was an important part of learning that lesson.
I was blessed to have parents, relatives, and others who taught me from an early age that God would be there for me. I am grateful for the foundation of faith they gave me. But I also learned that faith and preparation belong together.
I was taught to avoid unnecessary debt and to have what I needed. But like many people, I grew up in a society where we could usually go to a store and get what we needed when we needed it. We were not necessarily taught to think about what would happen if we couldn’t buy those things for weeks or months.
Life has changed.
People are facing increasing financial pressure. Food and other necessities cost more. Power outages and other disruptions happen. Technology and electronic systems that we depend on can stop working. A person may have money in a bank account but be unable to access it when the power or communications systems go down. A family may be able to afford food today but have little prepared for tomorrow.
And many people simply have never been taught how to prepare.
Why “Sisters Care”?
The name comes from something I have seen throughout my life: the way sisters care.
A sister may be the person you call when you need advice. She may know about medical issues, disasters, finances, children, careers, home repairs, food, or something completely unexpected. She may be the person who knows who to call when she doesn’t know the answer herself.
Sisters care about their families, their spouses, their children, their siblings, their parents, their extended families, their friends, their churches, and their communities.
They don’t always have the ability to solve someone’s problem, but they often help that person find a way forward.
That is what I want Sisters Care to represent.
It is more than saying, “I care about you.”
It is saying:
Care That Helps People Do Something
Sisters Care does not want people to reach out for help and leave with nothing but a pat on the back.
We want people to leave with something useful.
Our goal is to provide practical education, guidance, and preparedness so people can better meet the challenges they face.
That may mean learning how to stretch a household budget, prepare food and supplies, plan for a power outage, build an emergency supply, understand available community resources, prepare for financial disruption, or identify people and organizations they can turn to when something happens.
The goal is readiness.
Caring for the Whole Person and the Whole Community
Sisters Care does not believe resilience can be divided into isolated pieces.
A person facing a crisis may need food, but they may also need shelter.
They may need shelter, but they may also need transportation, energy, communication, clothing, medical assistance, financial resources, security, or emotional and spiritual support.
A crisis rarely stays inside one category.
That is why Sisters Care looks at the whole situation.
We want to help individuals and families think ahead about the many needs they could face—and understand the resources, skills, relationships, and preparations that can help them meet those needs.
And we want to do this for everyone.
Anyone who is old enough to work, earn money, make decisions, and begin building a life can benefit from learning how to prepare for the possibility that the next paycheck may not come, resources may become more expensive, or normal systems may temporarily stop working.
Faith, Hope, Love, and Preparation
For Sisters Care, preparedness is not separate from faith.
The Bible teaches principles of wisdom, stewardship, helping others, perseverance, and preparing during times of plenty for times of need.
We believe preparation can be an expression of love.
When we prepare ourselves, we are better able to help others.
When families prepare, they are less vulnerable.
When neighbors know one another and know where to find help, communities become stronger.
And when communities build relationships before a disaster happens, they are better positioned to respond when one does.
Building Resilient Communities
The long-term vision for Sisters Care is bigger than helping one household at a time.
We envision communities where people know:
- what they should have at home;
- how to prepare without spending a fortune;
- how to stretch the resources they have;
- where to find local assistance;
- who provides food, clothing, shelter, security, transportation, and other resources;
- which local businesses, farmers, churches, nonprofits, government agencies, and skilled individuals can help;
- and who to contact when something goes wrong.
We want communities to have relationships and networks before they need them.
A farmer should know who can help connect food to people who need it.
A grocery store or business should know how it can contribute during a crisis.
A church should know what resources are available.
A municipal employee or community leader should know who the local contacts are.
People with military, emergency, security, medical, construction, agricultural, financial, and other skills can become part of a broader network of community resilience.
The goal is for people and organizations to know one another and work together.
The Vision
Ten years from now, I want Sisters Care to have helped hundreds of thousands of families become better prepared to face disasters and disruptions.
I want families to have the knowledge and resources to make it through extended difficulties without immediately having to go out and buy everything they need.
I want communities to know where their resources are and who they can call.
And I want people to understand that preparedness is not about living in fear of what might happen.
It is about loving the people around us enough to be ready to help when something does.
Sisters Care is about the individual and the community coming together to make our world more resilient.
Our hope is that, together, we can make it through disasters—big and small—a little easier.
We can help one another.
We can prepare.
We can persevere.
We can have faith, hope, love, and charity.
And we can show the love of Christ by turning our care for one another into practical action.
Sisters Care: caring for people, preparing for tomorrow, and building resilient communities together.