Good Works Staff

Good Works is celebrating 43 years!!  January 1st, 2024 marked the start of our 44th year! This 4 page brochure explains our vision and many of the significant milestones. This essay is about some of our history.  These videos provide a snapshot of our history and vision for hospitality. 

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WE are so grateful for the different WORK RETREAT groups who come to serve our neighbors with us! We feel refreshed and enriched by every group!  We host 25+ groups a year on the weekends and week-long groups in the summer. Groups come from all over Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and other states. We still have 3 weeks open this summer. Maybe you know of a small group would consider coming to serve?

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This document entitled The Good Works Timothy House: Beyond the numbers was developed by Keith Wasserman and Garrett Mather-Smith in April 2024. 

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Good Works provided a participant in the Transformation Station
with vehicle # 203 on Thursday April 18th! Yea!!!

 

 

 

 

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Friday Night Life returned to the Good Works property on Friday April 12th.  We will remain there until October. Come any time after 4:30 pm. 

 

Click here to see or listen to the talk “ANSWERING THE PRAYER OF GOD” presented at the Asbury Theological Seminary chapel service on Wednesday February 28, 2024. This talk was part of a larger series at Asbury on the four practices that make or break every community based on the book Living Into Community by Christine Pohl. 

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Good Works Neighbors Helping Neighbors is focused on Saturday Service this spring.  Please consider coming along as we serve our neighbors. 

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Here is our Spring 2024 volunteer opportunity focus.

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GOOD WORKS  9 week paid Summer Service Internship starts June 9th and ends August 10, 2024. Click here for more information!

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Good Works Employment & Internship opportunities 2024

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This scripture study “WITH WHOM IS GOD CONCERNED” examines all of the places in scripture where the widow, the fatherless and the stranger are connected. 

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Click here learn about the different ways you can give to Good Works on-line.

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Summer Kids Discovery Club and Summer Lunch   launch another year starting June 17, 2024. 

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INTERNSHIPS
2024
Building a Community of HOPE!

APPALACHIAN IMMERSION INTERNSHIP is an opportunity for interns to live in the Good Works Hannah House and  experience a wide range of hands-on opportunities to serve others and grow in their faith inside  the ministries of Good Works. Interns receive a monthly stipend along with room and board. 

WEEK OF SERVICE is a short term internship we offer through out the year to anyone, age 16 or older who would like to come to Good Works for a week and join us.  Know someone who might enjoy spending a week with us this year?  Encourage them to contact us for an application. Week of Service participants stay in the Hannah House and are included in most of the activities going on including Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Life Together, and Friday Night Life. They volunteer at The Timothy House and participate in the Good Works staff meetings.

SUMMER SERVICE 2024 (Sunday June 9 to Saturday August 10th). We welcome summer interns who will live on the Good Works property and participate in leading our Work Retreats (Neighbors Helping Neighbors), Summer Kids Discovery Club, Good Works Gardens and serve with The Good Works Timothy House.  Interns receive a $2000.00 stipend for the 9-week period.

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Know someone who loves God and has a heart to love and serve people who struggle with poverty, exclusion and vulnerability? Click here to learn more about exploring an internship or staff position with the Good Works Community.

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The Good Works Book is available on-line here. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to Good Works to  fund leadership development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2023 NEWS  …

Click here to read our
December 2023 Good Works Newsletter

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Heart-felt THANKS to everyone who participated in
DAY IN THE LIFE 2023

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This was one of the first articles written about our work from our local paper in 1981

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This link is to an article about Good Works by the Ohio Capital Journal which was published on August 23, 2023

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IN HONOR OF CHRISTINE POHL

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Good Works provided a participant in the Transformation Station initiative with car #200 on November 9, 2023.  

 

 

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30 YEARS is a long time to do anything. We started Friday Night Life in the spring of 1993 at what is now called The Good Works Timothy House so that we could stay connected with the residents who were moving out. We moved it to Central Avenue United Methodist Church for about 8 years and kept it going every Friday (rain or shine) between The Plains United Methodist Church and the Good Works property on Luhrig Road. Thirty years. 

We are  SO THANKFUL for all the different groups (about 1,500 Friday Night Life sponsoring groups) who have provided the meal, and the hundreds of volunteers who have shared their time and love with us! I am so thankful for all the wonderful people I have met through Friday Life over the past 30 years. Some who came as children have come back with their children!  We began as strangers, but we became friends. These photos were taken on Friday May 19^th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The DEDICATION of Good Works Sign of HOPE (SOH) took place on Saturday April 15th. Click here to see a 2 minute video about the process of building SOH. 

 

 

 

 

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2022 NEWS  …

They finished well! Friday August 5 was the final day of our 7-week internship for local teens called  Kingdom Internship. Thank you Sophie Mather for working alongside other Good Works staff in making this internship experience possible this summer!

 We are grateful for Darlene Wasserman and her persistent perseverance in leading our 2022 Summer Lunch.which took place Monday  -Thursday for 7 weeks this summer!

With JOY, we welcomed several different Week-long Summer Work Retreats from Illinois, Connecticut, North Carolina and Ohio.. Our final group traveled  back on Saturday August 6. WE are so very thankful for all of the volunteers who came to serve alongside us this summer!  Groups served with with Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Summer Lunch and Summer Kids Discovery Club. They also provide a lot of progress towards finishing our new home called  SIGN OF HOPE!

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2021 NEWS  …

Keith has been writing some reflections about homelessness and staying overnight at the Good Works Timothy House in 2020 and 2021 during COVID. If you would like to read these reflections, Click here.

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This review of Good Works, Hospitality and Faithful Discipleship was written on November 22, 2021; An earlier  review of the book
was written on November 3, 2021.

 

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Here is our new 32 second video on the Good Works
Country Bed and Breakfast. 

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The Carter Cabin is a free service Good Works provides to any individual who desires a time of solitude and rest. It is another expression of hospitality.  To reserve a morning, afternoon or overnight in the cabin, contact us.

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The Good Works Transformation Station hosts celebrations each time someone completes their points and receives a car!  These celebrations are wonderful and amazing. We stand in awe as we listen to of the heavy kindness and love poured out. Please pass the word about what happens when someone donates a car, will you? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The new 4+ minute video describes what it is like for a church to partner with Good Works for a Work Retreat.

 

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Good Works Neighbors Helping Neighbors serves our neighbors in Athens County who struggle with poverty or have a disability or who are widows or widowers.  

 

 

 

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The Good Works Book is available on-line now. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to Good Works to  fund leadership development.

This article, “How hospitality and faithful Discipleship make for good work” was published by Faith and Leadership, the on-line magazine of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. It was published on June 14th. 

Reviews of Good Works, Hospitality and Faithful Discipleship by Keith Wasserman and Christine Pohl. 

This review is by Publishers Weekly.

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This devotional developed by the Good Works staff
is available for bible study. Check it out!

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Click here to read some recent reflections on leadership by Keith Wasserman.

 

 

2020 NEWS  …

 

With masks on, we gathered in the fall of 2020 to dedicate the new bridge over Factory Creek and to honor the Renaissance Engineers from Ohio University who build the bridge during the past two years. Click here to watch the 18 minute dedication video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Good Works Summer Service 2020 concluded on August 7th. This photo was taken at our annual affirmation banquet. Seated are our Summer Service Interns Kelly Carter, Isabella Daley and Sophie Mather. Standing behind them are a few of the Good Works staff.

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The Kingdom Internship ended July 30th with an affirmation event in the Hope Center. This year we had five local teens ranging in age from 13 to 17 who participated for 7 weeks.

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On Thursday July 30th,  Good Works finished up our annual Summer Lunch for 2020. Summer Lunch has been our way of loving and serving our neighbors who struggle with hunger and food insecurity. We provided around 35-40 meals every Monday-Thursday for 7 consecutive weeks at The Plains Community Park. In total, Darlene Wasserman (who keeps statistics) says we provided 960 meals. Heart-felt THANKS to Darlene who prepared every meal this summer with the  help of our interns a few volunteers. We are also grateful to have been able to use The Plains Community Park each day! Good Works also launched an outreach to local teens for five weeks this summer called Crossroads. We are grateful for the leadership of Nick Smith and Caitlyn O’Connell as they planned and led this expression of kindness and love for local teens.

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This one hour interview with Asbury Theological Seminary’s Thrive podcast was released on May 12th, 2020. There is some brief Good Works history and then a broad conversation about the many transferable principals of love and service.

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This 16+ minute presentation was given by Keith in Champaign, Illinois in February 2020.  It is primarily about a few of the practices that the Good Works community embraces that sustain community. This talk highlights one form of gratitude and truth-telling.  For more information on the practices, visit http://good-works.net/going-deeper

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Heart-felt thanks to everyone who has donated a car and to everyone who is thinking about donating a car.  This “asset-based” volunteer opportunity invites people to use their skills and abilities to serve others and provides a vehicle in exchange for their time. Since 2004, we have been welcoming people into community, offering them a PLACE as a volunteer to serve others alongside us and providing them with a car after they obtain enough points. 

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On an average year, Good Works hosts 25-35 Work Retreats with 300-400 different adults and children participating.  Our 2020 Work Retreat season began and ended in March with a week-long group  serving with us from Illinois.  Because of COVID, all of our spring, summer and fall 2020 groups cancelled, although a few rescheduled for next year. On an average year, Good Works receives a significant source of revenue from these groups assisting us in paying for utility and maintenance costs. But this is not an average year and the revenue did not come.

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LifeTogether is a small worshipping community which gathers every Sunday from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm on the Good Works property has been placed on “pause” for now.

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2019 NEWS  …

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Three Saturday’s each year, we invite our scheduled volunteers to participate in what we call Community Development. This is a time of updates, education, affirmation and communication around the different areas where volunteers serve once a week or once a month.

 

 

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On Saturday September 28^th , the Community of Good Works hosted a “ground-breaking” ceremony for our new initiative called Sign of HOPE at 100 Central Avenue.

Sign of HOPE is designed to WELCOME individuals and families who are experiencing a housing crisis who have a disability and who are unable to climb steps.

To read Keith’s speech at the Sign of HOPE groundbreaking, click here.

To read a news article about Sign of HOPE published on October 3, click here.

These men have worked hard to help us lay the foundation of Sign of HOPE!

 

 

This new 5+ minute video was produced by Tim Sharp. It is a brief story of our vision and mission.

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Here is a news article from Spring 2019 on the Transformation Station published by The Athens News.

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The 2019 Good Works 7 week Summer Kids Discovery Club (KDC) and Summer Lunch ended on August 1. Both initiatives were held four days a week (M-TH) at The Plains UMC. Because of the kindness and generosity of so many people, we were able to provide 1,534 hot and nutritional lunches this summer to adults and children.

 

This 40 minute sermon about the Foundational Vision of Good Works was given by Keith Wasserman at Bethel Worship Center in March 2019.

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In March 2019, Our Daily Bread published a short devotional on Keith Wasserman’s experience of being homeless by choice.

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In January 2019, OUR LIFE LOGS published a short story on Keith’s life. Click here to read the story.

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History Highlights

2013-2018 

2018 NEWS  …

Here is the link to our 2018 Thanksgiving Newsletter !!

We were able to provide car #174 in December to another participant in the Transformation Station initiative! We continue to believe that this aspect of our vision and mission is making a significant impact upon individuals and families who live in rural Ohio.

Good Works Transformation Station needs used vehicles in working condition right now.  To learn more, click here. This article explains some of the little known facts behind the nationwide car donation program. You may be surprised at what you read here. A LOT goes into planning and sustaining the Transformation Station. Click here to learn more.

In late November 2018, Keith was interviewed for the Kindness Podcast. The 20+ minute interview can be heard here.

For a brief article Keith wrote this year on the history of Good Works click here.

GOING DEEPER, our conference on exploring the four practices that make or break all christian communities was held on Saturday, October 27th. Our staff focused on sharing some of the sustainable practices we have developed in the Good Works community and how they fortify our vision and mission. We shared presentations and small group discussions on Promise-Keeping, Truth-Telling, Hospitality, and Gratitude. If you know of an organization or community that would benefit from these presentations, contact us and we can explore making arrangements to come and speak about these practices.

Click here to read a copy of the letter we send out to the Westside Neighborhood each year that explains the Good Works Timothy House.

Here is a short reflection by one of our recent interns (spring 2018) on his internship through the office of Faith, Work and Economics at Asbury Theological Seminary.  The article is entitled Creating Space for God.

We launched a new addition to our ministry in 2018:  Spiritual Formation Retreats. Led and directed by Paul Richard, this new aspect of Good Works focuses on creating space for a time of song, reflection and sharing around the themes of the justice and righteousness of God.

• • • This dramatic presentation was given by Keith Wasserman to the students and faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary during a chapel service on April 19, 2018. It is entitled THE MISSION OF GOD.
    • In early 2018, we invited several former staff and interns to share brief reflections on what most impacted them during their season with Good Works. Click here to read these reflections.
    • This short article entitled Poverty in Appalachia was developed by our staff to help our readers and supporters better understand some of the issues people we serve are impacted by.
    • This article was published in 2018 by Ohio University about Good Works. It tells the story of how Good Works was selected from 80 local non-profits to receive a grant from Warren Buffett’s Learning by Giving Foundation.

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2017 NEWS  …

• • • On an average year, we host around 40 groups who come to Athens, stay in our dorms and participate in Neighbors Helping Neighbors.  Last year, we visited and served 61 families or individuals, and led around 225 different projects at their homes!  Maybe you’d like to explore a conversation about bringing a group for a week or weekend this year?
    • This talk was given in Little Rock Arkansas.  It is one of five different presentations Keith gave in April 2017.  It begins with a film clip where Jesus speaks as recorded in Matthew 25:31-46.
    • Here is our document Good Works By the Numbers 2017.
    • If you are not already connected with us on Facebook, we want to encourage you to “friend us” and receive updates on Good Works each week.

Every Friday Night, Good Works provides 25-45 individuals and families with “take home” food. People sign up during Friday Night Life and the food is provided at 7:30 pm each week.  Want to do a food drive for Good Works?

Since 2004, Good Works has provided cars, appliances, non-emergency food, and bicycles to people in Athens county through a “sweat equity” initiative we call the Transformation Station!  As people donate cars and appliances to us, we are able to provide them to people who need them and who are willing to volunteer their time to serve others in the community.

The community of Good Works facilitates experiences for about 1,100 volunteers each year. Each October and February and April, we host a special Community Development Day to build up, encourage and affirm the volunteers who serve with us. Participants in The Timothy House, Friday Night Life, Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Kids Club, and Good Works Gardens attend.

 

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2016 NEWS  …

• • • We found these five recent audio presentations on poverty in America to be very helpful in terms of increasing our understanding and perspective on the very complex issues involved with being poor in this country.
    • This hour-long talk by Keith Wasserman was recorded on Sunday, September 18th. This is the story of Good Works and some of the basic foundational principals of the ministry God has trusted us with.
    • Andrea Horsch and Keith Wasserman have written an essay entitled Good Works Timothy House Beyond the Numbers (released February 2016).  This essay offers perspective and analysis on some of the numbers we have been compiling for the past 9 years. 

• • • LISTEN to a short audio story about the Good Works Timothy House!

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2015 NEWS  …

• • • On Sunday, October 25th, Good Works held a public presentation/conversation with the people of Athens County to talk about the way in which we provide shelter, changes we have instituted, and our desire to continue to be a good neighbor as we operate the only home for people without homes in 8 rural Southeast Ohio Counties.  The event took place at Central Avenue UM Church (westside) and was followed by an Open House at the Timothy House.
    • Check out this video about the summer at Good Works produced by Priscilla Thomas.
    • Ohio Today, a publication of Ohio University for alumni, published a two page article entitled  Embodying The Humanitarian Spirit about the work of Good Works and Keith Wasserman. You can find it on page 37.
    • This talk “Community Is The Means By Which We Carry Out Mission” was given by Keith Wasserman last spring at River of Life Community Church in Hudson, Ohio.
      
    • This 30+minute interview with Keith was recorded by Gospel Neighboring.

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2014 NEWS  … 

• • • Keith and Darlene Wasserman are opening their home to men, women and children the Timothy House can not assist based on space limitations. They provided 143 nights of shelter at their home last year.  This initiative, called Sign of HOPE started in February 2013. Each night the Wasserman’s go to the Timothy House and walk over to their home with the residents they are assisting.  Sign of HOPE has two bedrooms and can assist up to five people at one time.  The city of Athens does not have any laws regarding how many guests a home owner can have in their home or how long they can stay. 
    • Thanks to our friends from Grove City United Methodist Church, The Good Works property has a N E W greenhouse. 
    • Twelve minutes with Keith Wasserman. This 12 minute video was recorded in August as Keith provided an overview of Good Works to conference in Chicago.
    • Click here to see a new downloadable PDF entitled GOOD WORKS BY THE NUMBERS.
    • This  45 minute presentation on the biblical vision of Good Works with given by Keith to the Church of the Messiah in Xenia.
    • 2014 marked the 10th year of the Transformation Station. 
    • 2014 marked the 20th year of the Good Works Luhrig Road property.  This property was purchased in 1994 and ushered in the beginning of the ‘debt free’ era.
    • 2014 marked the 30th anniversary of the Timothy House which was purchased in 1984.  Since 1984, Good Works has provided  more than 110,000 nights of shelter at The Timothy House.

2013 NEWS  … 

• • • The community of FRIDAY NIGHT LIFE celebrated our 20th anniversary in May.  This monumental event was attended by a LOT of people even though it was raining and we lost power for the whole evening.  We began FNL in the spring of 1993 and held the event at Central Avenue United Methodist Church for about eight years before moving to The Plains United Methodist Church. Today, FNL is held on the Good Works property for six months and at the Plains UMC for six months. We are always seeking groups to sponsor one meal each year.
    • Our new trail dedication took place in October on the Good Works property. In addition to the beautiful hiking experiences enjoyed by adults and children of all ages, the event honored John Knouse who donated more than 500 hours of his time overseeing hundreds of volunteers during the past few years. 
    • The United Methodist Church conducted a series of interviews with our staff which resulted in this on-line article. 

INFO

Keith speaks about 50-80 times a year around the US on many topics related to the ministry God has trusted us with.  This talk was given at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Kingdom Conference:

• • • You can save this sermon and listen to it later.  Just right-click the media player and select “save as” to save the file to your computer.

    • We have developed a seminar entitled “The Gospel to the Poor — A Practical Biblical Theology.”  For the handouts for this seminar, click here.
    • Matt and Beverly Hale have written a unique bible study on Righteousness and Justice.  This study was originally developed as a workshop for University Students associated with the Navigators and has been adapted for Good Works.  It is available here:  A_study_in_Justice_and_Righteousness.  Matt and Beverly were on the Good Works staff for several years working with Friday Night Life and our Life on Life mentoring program.  They currently live and labor in ministry in inner-city Detroit, Michigan.
    • Would it surprise you to learn that Good Works has struggled to find funding for the ministry God has entrusted to us with here in SE Ohio?  Take a look at these statistics and you may be surprised to learn what we have discovered.  If you know of a foundation which funds the kind of projects we are committed to, please email us or contact 740.594.3339.  To read about the Reality of Fundraising in SE Ohio, click here.