Share Our Selves

Just as putting a bandage on a wound won’t treat an illness, we know that simply providing access to medical care will not cure the symptoms of poverty. Poor health, homelessness, insufficient nutrition, and lack of education all further the symptoms of poverty, which in turn intensify these conditions. To make any lasting difference, a person’s care must address all angles of this vicious circle. This understanding does not just define our philosophy of care at Share Our Selves, it illuminates the injustice of structural inequality and ignites our passion to change it.

Poverty is not just an individual’s issue –for if those around us are refused basic human rights, we allow injustice to endure in our community. Share Our Selves acts an access point to services and advocacy, caring for those who cannot care for themselves and shouting for those with no voice. Some are blind to the poverty that plagues many corners of our county while others blatantly ignore it, but we stand firm against this injustice, providing services in order to promote systemic change, caring for the individual in order to care for our community.

We are warriors fighting for the change that Orange County deserves, striving to make it a place where peace prevails and each individual –body, mind, and spirit –is cared for. Through healed ailments and bags of food, through filled cavities and filled backpacks, each of us serves in different ways, but our battle cry for justice is the same. Some of us are doctors. Some of us are givers of goods. But all of us are caretakers, and we’re all striving to transform the systems that deny members of our community the dignity they deserve.