Lexington Rescue Mission (The Mission) provides individuals and their families with physical, emotional, and spiritual services and support. Serving the greater Lexington, Kentucky, area, their goal is to provide people with access to affordable housing or transitional housing, healthcare treatments, lasting employment, food, and assistance with reentry into the community after incarceration. The mission delivers on this goal by providing comprehensive care services that include meals, clothing, emergency financial assistance, employment training, job placement, transitional housing, pastoral counseling, and case management.

Most of their patrons live in Fayette County, the second-largest county in the state, and every person they serve lives below the poverty line. With 66 percent of their patrons being unhoused, the services they provide are a vital lifeline to many people in the community.

The Mission has developed a series of programs focused on proactively seeking out people in need and meeting them where they are, instead of waiting for them to come to the mission. These unique programs, which serve more than 6,000 people per year, provide food and basic supplies, and on-site assistance through a three-member Street Outreach Team. This on-the-ground team visits the camps and other locations where unhoused people congregate to speak with them, establish relationships, assess their needs, and provide them support, including connecting them to medical care, detox services, substance abuse treatment, and housing.

The Mission was also selected by the mayor of Lexington as a partner in the new workforce resource center at the Charles Young Center to provide job training and job placement assistance. The need for increased job training was identified by the Mayor’s Commission on Racial Justice & Equality. “This is the perfect time for workforce training as we come out of a pandemic that cost many people their jobs,” Mayor Linda Gorton said.

These vital programs require funding to deliver services to the community – and the pandemic added a new layer of complexity and costs. With the help of a grant from the Maximus Foundation, the mission overcame the challenges of the pandemic and continues to expand its services. As a provider of job placement and training for the state of Kentucky, Maximus has a shared goal of helping people in need obtain employment and the food and housing securities that come with it.

Learn more about Lexington Rescue Mission and their work helping people in their community.

Giving back to the communities we serve

The Maximus Foundation is one of the ways Maximus employees are doing something greater together. Established by the Maximus Board of Directors in 2000, the Maximus Foundation is an independent, employee-led, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Employee donors pool their contributions together through the Foundation, increasing their community impact by supporting nonprofits that serve the same communities we do. Employee donors double their impact through Maximus’ dollar-for-dollar matching pledge and make their voices heard by nominating and voting for future grantee partners. Learn more at maximus.com/foundation.