Our Mission...to rescue lives, to save lives, to change lives, to serve lives.
The Phoenix Rescue Mission was founded in 1952 by six businessmen from the Phoenix area. In the beginning, they ministered to migrant workers and vagrants. "Homelessness" was not yet a term that was associated with persons who had unfortunate circumstances.
Our original location was in a building on South 3rd Street in downtown Phoenix. Services provided at that time consisted of an evening meal, Chapel, and much needed clothing. Lodging was not available.
As the six founders progressed in age, they began to feel the burden of trying to keep up with the needs of the many people requiring their services, and they began to seek out help. At that time, they were serving between 35 and 50 clients each day. Reverend Carl Spacone joined the Mission as a board member in 1963 and became the Executive Director of the Phoenix Gospel Mission in 1969.
By November 1969, the Mission had moved to a larger building at 440 W. Washington Street. The building was actually the old Utah Hotel. For 22 years, we provided showers, three meals per day, clothing, family events, Sunday school on Sunday afternoons, food boxes, and six beds for addiction recovery at that location.
In 1991, urban renewal -- by right of eminent domain -- forced the relocation of the Phoenix Gospel Mission. Warehouse property was purchased at 35th Avenue, and progress remained steady but slow. Unfortunately, later that year, Reverend Spacone became ill and eventually passed on to be with Our Lord Jesus Christ, leaving his wife Dorothy to carry on. As Acting Director, Dorothy and her son-in-law Robert Paden ran the Mission until 1994.
Dorothy hired Don Johnson as the Mission's executive director in September 1994, and under his leadership the Mission continued to grow and change. The Phoenix Gospel Mission became the Phoenix Rescue Mission in 1997.
In the Spring of 1999, the Board of Directors appointed Mr. Jerry Sandvig as its Executive Director. Under Jerry’s watch, the Mission expanded its ministries with outreach to the surrounding community. The Mission offers a 24-hour walk in center, 180 emergency shelter beds, 21 addiction recovery beds, three meals daily, showers and clean clothing, a Career Education Center, Chapel services, and referral information. An additional ministry is the Hope Coach, which is currently on the road, offering lunches, bottled drinks, Christian literature, prayer, blankets and a friendly word of encouragement to the homeless on the streets.
Food boxes are distributed to families, and especially to single mothers with children, every weekday. At Thanksgiving and Christmas special holiday food boxes with turkey and all the fixings are given to hundreds of needy families.
Special events are held each year at Easter, for Back to School, Thanksgiving and Christmas for the children in our neighborhoods and area school district. Here we serve thousands of children by providing clothing and other items they otherwise would likely not receive. At each event, there is Christian presentation of message and song, that is enjoyed by children and parents alike.
As we begin the next 50 years, planning is underway to build a new shelter for women and children. God continues to call us to grow and serve more people. The success of the Mission has been a result of the Lord’s blessing of our work. That won’t change in the future ministries of the Mission as we continue to pray and work to stay in God’s will. As we do that, we will continue to see that we are cared for by the Lord and by you and so many other faithful friends.