The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has opened a new, interactive facility for its global Humanitarian Center, which facilitates many of the church’s thousands of humanitarian projects each year.
The new facility, located just south of the previous site in Salt Lake City, was designed to improve efficiency, strengthen collaboration and enhance the visitor experience, all while continuing to support the center’s two-fold mission to foster self-reliance and care for those in need around the world.
“This facility will serve an important role in preparing and distributing emergency supplies to meet global needs,” church President Dallin H. Oaks wrote in a Sunday social media post.
President Oaks and his counselors in the church’s First Presidency toured the new facility Friday, May 22. They joyfully observed how the new facility provides job training, language courses and other practical skills, as well as space for donated goods to be processed for humanitarian use.
The new Humanitarian Center will be dedicated by the church’s Presiding Bishopric in a private event held the evening of Wednesday, May 27.
Public tours of the facility will then be available during an open-house period that will run every Monday through Friday from June 1 to July 23.
Here are three facts to know about the new Humanitarian Center and how it facilitates striving to fulfill Christ’s command to “love thy neighbour as thyself.” Further information on how to visit and serve is also below.
1. The new center was built smaller, but for a purpose
The new Humanitarian Center of the Church of Jesus Christ measures 250,000 square feet, per a press release published Wednesday on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Blaine Maxfield, managing director of the church’s Welfare and Self-Reliance Services, led the Deseret News and other media representatives through a preview tour of the facility on Wednesday. He explained that while the new facility is smaller than the previous one, its design allows for more efficiency and strengthens collaboration.
The facility’s design was very carefully thought out, Maxfield said, “and we were purposeful on the size of this because it helps you create efficiencies and also builds teamwork.”
The first floor of the facility provides ample space for workers to process donated goods and prepare humanitarian supplies on a large scale, but it also fosters efficiency and collaboration by enabling workers to work closer together.
Strengthening collaboration is valuable to workers, known as associates, since many are immigrants or refugees seeking to build practical skills that will help them qualify for better employment, Maxfield said.
The second floor of the facility includes space for conference rooms and classrooms of varying sizes, where workers can receive further skills training that will help them on the path to self-reliance.
2. Operations bless workers and worldwide recipients alike
The church Humanitarian Center hires hundreds of individuals, including immigrants and refugees, each year.
These individuals receive job training, language courses, employment counseling and practical experience as they work at the center to process donated goods for worldwide humanitarian use.
The Humanitarian Center currently has associates from more than two dozen countries. They work to process surplus clothing donations from Deseret Industries thrift stores and then compress these donations into 100-pound bales that can be distributed worldwide for humanitarian aid and emergency situations.
Associates also dismantle and recycle donated electronics, learn culinary skills as part of their job training and spend approximately half their day in English classes at the center, per a church press release.
“The work we do is work done with a lot of heart because we know it is for other people who are in need,” associate Tina Jones from Peru said in the church press release.
“We love what we do, especially since we work with people from so many different countries.”
Jones is nearing the end of her time at the center and recently completed a medical certificate with the facility’s help, according to the church release.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ also volunteer at the center, creating about 5,000 quilts annually from donated materials and working with associates to assemble cleaning and relief kits for emergency situations.
It is an “absolute honor” to participate in helping God’s children around the world, Maxfield told the media during their tour of the Humanitarian Center. “Independent of any of your thoughts or beliefs or feelings, we want to care for God’s children and that’s what motivates us.”
Visitors can get a sense of the center’s work and the breadth of the church’s worldwide humanitarian aid in the tour/visitor area of the facility.
3. The center’s focus is tied to Christ and early church history
Murals depicting Jesus Christ healing and serving others paint a clear picture of the center’s focus, which is tied to Christ’s second great commandment: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
A mural depicting a cartoon version of the church’s founding prophet, Joseph Smith, and others helping each other also shows that the church’s focus on humanitarian aid is tied to early church history.
“We are to ‘feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church or in any other, or in no church at all,’” reads a quote from Joseph Smith that is seen accompanying the mural.
Maxfield reflected on this quote and the church’s history of humanitarian aid, saying: “One thing that is clear to us is that we’re trying to follow the Savior’s example to look outside of ourselves. … Whether you’re in the church or outside of the church, it doesn’t matter to us. We just want to look for opportunities to care for people.”
The church Humanitarian Center was first established in 1991 and has long served a dual purpose of fostering self-reliance and caring for those in need, according to a church release.
How to visit and serve
Public tours of the Humanitarian Center — located at 1999 W. 1700 South in Salt Lake City — will be available every Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. starting June 1.
Tour hours will shift but remain available once the center’s open house period ends on July 23.
Patrons are encouraged to schedule their visit through the recently launched Temple Square app, though walk-ins are also welcome.
During their visit, patrons will be able to participate in service opportunities such as sorting clothing or assembling cleaning and humanitarian kits.
Find further opportunities to serve locally on JustServe.org and further information on the church’s humanitarian and welfare efforts on Caring.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.