Why we celebrate Goodwill Week 

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

In the early years of the 12th century the Spanish philosopher Maimonides penned this proverb which would go on to be one of the most well know with regards to man’s journey toward self-sufficiency.  Almost 800 years later, in 1902, a Methodist minister from Boston named Edgar J. Helms would establish an organization that personifies the ideal that Maimonides was illustrating.  He saw the people of his city who had encountered seemingly insurmountable poverty and wanted to give them something more than just temporary relief in the form of a charitable handout.  He wanted to give them the means to permanently change their lives through sustainable employment which would allow them to earn a paycheck while also building personal dignity.  This was the birth of Goodwill.

Today Goodwill has grown into a network of 165 autonomous community-based organizations throughout the United States and Canada. Each of these organizations offers customized training and education programs for people with disabilities and disadvantages as they work toward a common goal of providing those individuals with the tools they need to achieve self-sufficiency. Every year during the first full week of May these Goodwill organizations come together to celebrate the power of work and Helm’s philosophy of “a hand up, not a hand out”. This celebration is known as Goodwill Week.

For more than 60 years, local Goodwill organizations have celebrated Goodwill Week to raise awareness of our critical mission of getting people who have lost jobs back to work. and demonstrate the power of work. Your support is critical to this essential work.  When you donate or shop at Goodwill, you are helping us provide people with the training and support they need to find jobs, advance in their careers and thrive.