About Week of Compassion
The ministry of Week of Compassion is a faithful and effective way for Disciples congregations, members and friends to channel their resources and concerns to the humanitarian needs of suffering people in the world.
Through Week of Compassion, North American Disciples reach out in the name of Christ to:
- provide emergency and long-term assistance to people in the aftermath of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, droughts, civil war and other natural and human catastrophes. In a typical year WOC responds to a disaster about once every two days.
- respond with help, hope and hospitality to people who have been uprooted and displaced from their homelands by war, environmental catastrophe, famine and natural disaster. There are more than 30 million uprooted and displaced people in the world. Many of them are children.
- support programs of sustainable development and rehabilitation that empower people and communities to stand against and rise above hunger, poverty, disease, illiteracy, and other forces of injustice that deny and destroy human dignity. WOC supports projects in nearly 100 countries on every inhabitable continent of the earth.
- encourage and support volunteer groups in "hands-on" mission and service opportunities.
Annually, WOC partners with more than 50 Disciples work groups in mission projects in North America and abroad.
Through partnerships with Church World Service, Action by Churches Together, Interchurch Medical Assistance, Foods Resource Bank, Heifer International, Global Ministries, the Office of Disciples Volunteering, Refugee and Immigration Ministries, Bread for the World, Souper Bowl of Caring, Habitat for Humanity, the Ecumenical Church Loan Fund (ELCOF), and hundreds of local church partners around the world, Week of Compassion shares in a remarkable network of service and caring that is efficient, effective and faithful. WOC’s administrative costs are typically less than eight percent annually. All designated gifts to WOC go in their entirety as the donor directs.
Through Week of Compassion, Disciples also participate with Christians in nine other Protestant denominations in One Great Hour of Sharing, thus multiplying the effectiveness and extent of our witness many times over.
Of course, the partnership we share with more than 3000 Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) congregations across North America is where this remarkable ministry of connecting Disciples to the world and sharing compassion with all God’s children truly begins. Disciples annually channel more than 2.5 million dollars through Week of Compassion for humanitarian needs in the world.
WEEK OF COMPASSION: Around the World - Around the Year
