Brief History:

Human Service Alliance (HSA) is an all-volunteer, not-for-profit, educational and service organization located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The purpose of HSA is to foster the idea that human goodness is an innate quality in every person; that voluntary service, carried out by individuals and groups, is a proven method for stimulating and expressing this innate quality; and that volunteers can provide services that are better than money can buy.

Hands-on Service at No Charge

In 1986, a small group of service-minded individuals began caring for terminally ill people, providing residential service around the clock and one person at a time, in the home of one of the volunteers. Over time, the group evolved into the Human Service Alliance (HSA), an all-volunteer organization based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which provided, at no cost, care for the terminally ill, respite care for children with disabilities, mediation services, and health and wellness programs for hundreds of individuals, as well as training and inspiration for dozens of like-minded service organizations through the US.

Education

In 1998, the Center for Purposeful Living (CPL) was begun as the educational component of HSA in order to share with others the principles of spirituality, soulful service, and group work that had been found to be useful in HSA’s service work. In 2000, the Center started the Transformation through Service (TTS) program by admitting its first class of full-time, live-in students. The year-long TTS program establishes a foundation for building common sense, clear thinking and communication, interpersonal and leadership skills, freedom from barriers, money and time management, and a clearer sense of one’s life purpose. The recently inaugurated CPL Fellows program, introduced in 2005, allows individuals an opportunity to take this a step deeper. The program’s two- to seven-year period allows greater opportunity for developing and practicing the skills that have been learned in class. The overall purpose of such an education is to facilitate the training of “world servers”—groups and individuals who are interested in learning how to make a positive difference in the world through group-centered service work.

Commitment and Innovation

No fees are charged and all of the CPL faculty are volunteers who do regular service tasks alongside the students. The Center is not affiliated with any religious or political organization. As a service-learning laboratory for applying the soulful principles mentioned above, CPL operates California Fresh Catering, a popular and successful Winston-Salem catering service, staffed largely by volunteers, that provides good food and warm, inspirational service. California Fresh Catering makes regular donations to the Foundation for Purposeful Living (see final paragraph below). The sole purpose of the catering operation is to provide a “hands-on” experiential education for students and Fellows in putting into everyday practice the principles of personal/soulful development, service, and group work taught at CPL.

The Foundation for Purposeful Living: A New Level of Service

Throughout the years HSA has been funded by contributions from board members, individuals in the community, churches, businesses, and grants from various charitable organizations. Now, the capacity of HSA has grown to the extent that it is able to support other similar endeavors.

The organization celebrated its twentieth year of service in 2006 by establishing the Foundation for Purposeful Living with an initial endowment of $1 million.  The Foundation for Purposeful Living has been established to encourage and promote projects oriented primarily towards volunteer service and group work.

The Foundation for Purposeful Living will offer aid to creative and bold acts of goodwill and group-based service endeavors that energize personal and planetary transformation. Its mission is to stimulate and encourage endeavors that contribute to the expansion of human consciousness; the proactive, creative and practical expression of goodwill among all peoples; and the manifestation of human goodness. For an example, go here.

Human Service Alliance also regards the Foundation as a gentle but clear invitation to other donors to help support the Foundation and its mission by building on this gift and growing the Foundation’s endowment through personal contributions. The organization itself will not stop with this initial gift, but will continue to increase the endowment by annual contributions from its experiential learning laboratory, California Fresh Catering. This popular caterer has already donated more than $100,000 to local charities through its charitable giving program and will be providing annual donations to the Foundation to assure that its endowment continues to grow.