Stuart Ray (left), Executive Director of Guiding Light Mission and Donald Tack (right), shortly before the 2014 Annual Guiding Light Mission Banquet where Don Tack received the First Annual Good Samaritan Award, recognizing his over 20 years of hard work on behalf of the mentally ill homeless and poor population. (Photo credit and story can be found below)
Don Tack became an urban missionary, but that wasn't the goal behind Servants Center in the beginning. Don was an educator and pastor for 30 years before he felt called to do something about what he saw was the ever-widening gap between the evangelical churches and the poor.
Servants Center began in the classroom and on the street to teach how the Church is called to be in relationship and serve the poor as Christ had served. Don not only taught the Biblical principles calling the Church to serve, but he also lived on the street among the homeless population. He not only witnessed the dehumanizing and sometimes cruel actions toward the poor, even by those claiming to serve them, but he took his classroom to the street and invited others to witness first hand the conditions that the poor endure.
From these interactions, as well as support from his wife, Phyllis, who worked as a mental health nurse for a number of years, Don began to hear a calling to serve not only the homeless population, but to serve the least-served population within the homeless, those people with severe mental illness. Thus, Servants Center was born officially in 1993.
The Staff and Board of Servants Center gratefully thank Don for heeding the call to begin Servants Center and serve over 2,000 people as of 2015.
Don Tack (right) with one of many people he helped get off the streets and stay off the streets in over 20 years of ministry at Servant Center.
Thank you to Guiding Light Mission and StellaFly for the use of the banner picture. Full credit and story can be found by clicking the stellafly logo below:
