With the generous support of local businesses like Bontan Medical and Black Diamond Medical, as well as the Advent Health Nursing Program—which provided free medical care to those we served—our efforts quickly grew. Every Friday, we were joined by dozens of passionate volunteers, additional local businesses, and area churches. Together, we made a meaningful difference by providing food, clothing, and shelter to homeless men, women, and children.

First Alliance Church provided pantry space to store food from local food banks and access to its kitchen to prepare our weekly nutritious meals. Funding from St. Stephen Protomartyr Orthodox, supplemented by ongoing in-kind donations from New Destiny Christian Center and Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, enabled us to expand our feeding operations and deliver non-perishable groceries to inner-city neighborhoods.

Downtown Baptist Church opened a 30,000-square-foot facility adjacent to the main building, allowing us to create a 14-room distribution center (“clothing closet”) that offered poor and homeless individuals and families access—twice a week—to free clothing and shoes for all ages, hygiene supplies, blankets, sheets, pillows, furniture, and household goods. For those who could not make it to the clothing closet, we also distributed these items on St. George's  parking lot.

Beyond meals, free haircuts, and clothing and hygiene distribution on Fridays at St. George, our cars and vans served as “mobile offices” on other weekdays, where we offered job assistance, public and private transportation, medical and dental prescription fulfillment, mail delivery service, storage service, and other vital support to help individuals and families reclaim their lives and move from the streets to stable housing. When needed, we helped relocate people to cities where secure jobs or housing awaited them. Through temporary, transitional, and permanent housing assistance, we gave hundreds of Orlando families a genuine opportunity for a fresh start.

Between 2016 and 2020, The Ephraim Project partnered with Emmanuel’s Kitchen and a network of 42 Christian and parachurch organizations, along with one regional food chain and more than 40 restaurants, to provide weekly meals to tens of thousands of impoverished and homeless men, women, and children in 17 cities across Central and South Florida. Together, we became living proof that Christ’s love—amplified by many hearts—can transform entire cities and restore hope where it is needed most.

During our 13 years of serving the homeless, The Ephraim Project had the privilege of praying with 146 individuals who made decisions for Christ, accepting Him as their Lord and Savior; we also guided 93 others to rededicate their lives to Him. We also distributed more than 4,000 bibles in the St. George parking lot as well as through our humanitarian relief containers.

Looking abroad, The Ephraim Project shipped humanitarian containers to families in need in Kenya, Uganda, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, and many other West Indies island nations. We sent pallets of nonperishable food, oil, rice, water, furniture, clothing, shoes, blankets, electronics, and hygiene supplies. After learning that teachers at a school in Cap-Haïen, Haiti, walked miles daily to reach their classrooms, we funded bicycles for every teacher at the school.

The Ephraim Project, together with Emmanuel’s Kitchen, partnered with The Mamboleos—a dedicated husband-and-wife team formerly with CRU—to establish both private and community vegetable and fruit gardens in a once-barren Kenyan village.

In partnership with Voice of the Martyrs, The Ephraim Project shipped a total of 90 Action Packs in 2018 and 2019 to aid displaced and persecuted Christians in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sudan.  Each Action Pack included blankets, bedsheets, towels, face cloths, face soap, jackets, socks, t-shirts, gloves, and knit hats for men, women, and children.

The Ephraim Project had the privilege of coming alongside other believers to support their kingdom endeavors such as collecting and shipping hundreds of hand knitted caps, scarves, and gloves made by Disney VoluntEARS and Sadie Judge to aid City Life Baptist Church’s quest to help Native American tribes face brutal winters. We regularly supplied Orlando-based pregnancy centers with new and lightly used baby clothes, equipment, and other supplies young mothers need for their children.  We helped build a Sunday School building in a remote part of Uganda and supplied it with chairs for the children and helped George and Susan Mamboleo construct a church in the same Kenyan village where we helped establish several community gardens.