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Project Dignity

serving the homeless with dignity, humility & love

Don’t try to solve everyone’s problems

The purpose of what we do is to show love

The purpose of what we do is to show love

Curb your inclination to want to try to solve everyone’s problems. It doesn’t make you a less compassionate person. It just keeps you sane. For one thing, you rob someone of their dignity when you try to take care of everything for them. It takes a while to develop a sense of what’s right and what’s too much.

Go slowly. How can you do too much, you may ask? They need everything, don’t they? You’ll know that you’ve done too much the first time you have to refuse someone something and all hell breaks loose because you’ve taken care of everything else up to now. Resist the urge to set yourself up as Santa Claus or the Good Fairy. It’s really quite insulting to your clients and exhausting for you. We probably lose more volunteers because of this than anything else.

Trying to take care of everything doesn’t work. It doesn’t do anybody any good and eventually it just burns you out. Then you leave and feel guilty the rest of your life. As Project Dignity founder Linda Dunlap was fond of saying, “Love doesn’t always look like you think it should”. She was 100% right. (She usually was.)

The purpose of what we do is to show love. Sometimes, just like you do with your children, the most loving thing you can do is to say “No”. Always, always, always say it with compassion and love. Don’t stumble around and apologize. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.


This is an excerpt from the free “Serving the Homeless in Motels” eBook, which you can find out more about here, or download right now:

Download the free “Serving the Homeless in Motels” eBook

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December 9, 2013 /// Filed Under: All Tips /// Tagged With: Adults, children, heart, homeless, motels, practical, problem-solving

What We Do

While we don’t feel anyone can ever fully understand the motel situation, we believe we understand it better than most. To our knowledge we are the only local organization who is focusing their services solely on the homeless population living in residential motels and we’ve been doing it since 1996.

It’s a long haul from homelessness to home, so our programs “wraparound” the challenges. Our first objective is to ease the burdens of daily living for our clients by assisting with necessities most of us take for granted–food, clothing and hygiene items.

Find out more →

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A tribute to our Founder

In 1986 doctors told Linda Dunlap she had 6 months to live and she told them the Lord knew more about that than they did. She said He had a lot more work for her to do. She proved herself and God right by living another 22 ministry-packed years.

Linda went into the motels singlehandedly with nothing more than her backpack and a few medical supplies. She won the confidence of people who had never had anyone care about them or help them before. Her belief and vision that one person can make a difference grew into 10,000 people being helped annually by Project Dignity.

Remembering Linda →

More tips like this one

  • Back to School–For Children Only?
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Project Dignity

12913 Harbor Blvd., Ste. Q3, #253
Garden Grove, CA 92840

More tips like this one

  • Back to School–For Children Only?
  • When is it Really an Emergency?
  • What Makes a Great Volunteer?
  • We really all are in the lifeboat of planet Earth together
  • This ain’t no Magic Bus

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