We wanted to get more involved with the needs of the community, but didn't fully understand their struggles or needs. Just Neighbors helped us begin to understand issues of poverty, low-income families, and the crisis of affordable housing. And by connecting these issues with scripture, the program helped the participants feel more comfortable discussing difficult issues. . . . It made the phrase "there but for the grace of God go I" hit home.

We used Just Neighbors during Lent as part of our parish educational series for adults. We tailor-made it to fit with our Lenten theme and we found it very helpful. . . . Another series geared for children would be great. . . . One teenager was impressed that the common costs of her household, like riding lessons, were greater than the very basic items of a struggling family's budget.

The impact and scope of the Just Neighbors program in our community exceeded our expectations, going way beyond congregation study groups. . . . What we hadn't anticipated was its broader use in the community-in high schools, universities, companies, and community learning centers. . . . It builds our [IHN's] credibility in the community, and it has helped us attract congregations that might otherwise have thought that we were just a Band-Aid program-not effecting real change.

We had been looking at poverty in general, considering how different life is for the working poor, but I didn't think that the kids in our community really understood those differences. Just Neighbors offered an extraordinary opportunity to make sociology interesting for the kids, and to have them see some real-life situations. . . . I skimmed from several of the modules. I took bits and pieces from here and there. The fact that I had the whole ToolKit to choose from meant that I could offer the students good solid information and a set of experiences that were very different from just reading a textbook.