HISTORY OF THE RESCUE MISSION OF SALT LAKE In the early 1970s, a small group of Salt Lake-based Christian businessmen regularly drove from Salt Lake to Ogden to serve at the only Christ-centered homeless service provider in the State of Utah — The Ogden Rescue Mission. On one trip, a father and son team, Don and Dan Kramer, invited Kay Nakashima, a friend and fellow Christian businessman, to come along. On the return trip, Kay asked why they drove past homeless people in the Salt Lake area to head north. This sparked an idea, and Kay’s question led this small group of men, along with their families, to establish the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake. In 1972, after much prayer and second mortgages on four of the founders’ homes, the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake began serving our homeless friends and neighbors in the downtown Salt Lake area. Since then, the Rescue Mission has developed services to meet the immediate needs of our homeless friends (food, shelter, clothing and more) as well as comprehensive, life-changing programs to provide a pathway off the streets through addiction recovery, Christian education, employment, housing and restoration of relationships. This includes the addition of our Women’s Center in 1984, where women and children have a safe place to find shelter, clothing, counseling and addiction recovery services. In 2019, God brought this story full circle. After years of friendship and collaboration, the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake and Ogden Rescue Mission joined together as one organization that could care for Utah’s most vulnerable populations along the Wasatch Front. Today, the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake provides daily meals to the homeless and low-income communities in Ogden and Salt Lake. Each night, they provide safe, comfortable shelter for men, women and children who have nowhere else to go. Their goal remains the same as it was back in 1972: To be the most effective life-changing ministry in Utah that serves the homeless, indigent and poor by providing services that meet spiritual, physical, emotional, educational, social and mental wholeness needs through the love and power of Jesus Christ. 13
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