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Welfare Square grain silo

Welfare Square is a complex in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), to provide material assistance to poor and otherwise needy individuals and families. Welfare Square is part of the Church's Church Welfare System. It includes a 178-foot, 300,000 bushel grain silo, fruit orchards, a milk-processing plant, a cannery, a bakery, a Deseret Industries thrift store, a private employment office, and the LDS Church's largest[1] Bishop's storehouse, as well as associated administrative offices.[2]

Most of the assistance provided at Welfare Square goes to those who are members of the LDS Church. However, Welfare Square also has a homeless shelter that is open to all, regardless of religious belief. Between sixty and eighty homeless people are helped daily.[3]

Welfare Square provides regular employment for around fifty people, in addition to the two hundred rotating volunteers needed to provide its services and run its operations. Fast offerings from local LDS congregations fund its operations.[2]

History

Welfare Square was created in 1938,[2] under the direction of the Church's General Welfare Committee, which itself had been formed just two years earlier.[4] Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, as the United States was experiencing the Great Depression Welfare Square became the flagship of the Church's Welfare Program.

A four year renovation started in the late 1990s, and was completed in 2001. The 1940 granary building was the only building on the site that was not significantly refurbished or newly built.[5] The concrete grain elevator can hold 318,000 bushels of wheat (about 19 million pounds).[6]

Values

As part of the LDS Church's larger Welfare Program, all aid received at Welfare Square is based on personal responsibility, thrift, and work; recipients of aid are asked to volunteer their time after receiving help.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "News Story", Newsroom, LDS Church, 6 January 2010 {{citation}}: |contribution= ignored (help)
  2. ^ a b c Haws, T. Glenn (1992), "Welfare Square", in Ludlow, Daniel H (ed.), Encyclopedia of Mormonism, New York: Macmillan Publishing, pp. 1558–1559, ISBN 0-02-879602-0, OCLC 24502140
  3. ^ "Heather" (30 January 2011), "Latter-day Saint Christian", ldschristian.org, archived from the original (blog) on 2011-02-04 {{citation}}: |contribution= ignored (help)[unreliable source?]
  4. ^ "Events", philanthropyroundtable.org, Philanthropy Roundtable {{citation}}: |contribution= ignored (help)
  5. ^ Moore, Carrie A. (September 6, 2001), "Welfare Square work completed", Deseret News
  6. ^ Wadley, Carma (September 6, 2001), "Welfare Square: Priceless commodities", Deseret News

References

Further reading

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