It is often difficult to separate an organization and its president, and so it is with LSC and me, especially after 20 years. LSC has influenced me over and over and I have rubbed off a little on LSC. We’re all products of our environment, so LSC gets a good dose of my Goins/Summey heritage too.
All my life I have heard from my dear ol’ Dad: “He who tooteth his own horn hath nothing to toot.” A more modern version is “Walk the walk, instead of talking the talk.”
And so it is with justice. LSC has been on a never-ending journey for Justice. We haven’t been first, but we have been steady and relentless in our quest to, in the words of Maya Angelou, “When you know better, do better.” We’re learning to do better.
LSC’s journey started with serving the indigent and promoting gender and racial equality. Among our milestones:
- A board that is 50-50 female/male and over 40 percent persons of color
- Organization-wide education on diversity
- Purchasing a nursing home in socioeconomically disadvantaged East Winston-Salem and then building that community a new building
- A strategic plan strong in diversity/equity/inclusion
We walked, but we didn’t talk very much about it, especially from a diversity standpoint. After the May 25, 2020 murder of George Floyd, many people and organizations were speaking out. We realized that few people knew of LSC’s justice work. Teammates and the Board of Trustees decided we couldn’t just walk the walk; we needed to talk it too.
LSC is slow but steady. It took a year to encourage all of our 1,800 LSC teammates and the LSC Strategic Planning Committee and board to discuss and weigh in. Part of that process was to consult the pastors and board members, Bishops Aebischer and Smith, and others to weigh in from a theological perspective. Measure twice and cut once.
In June 2021, just over a year after the Floyd murder, the board adopted a seventh LSC Value: Justice!
God calls us to “Do Justice,” to be in a right relationship with God and with each other. Every person should live free of bias, favoritism, and discrimination. The people of LSC will work to create a just culture throughout the organization and in all the communities we serve.
The entire LSC family is humbled, passionate, and energized to walk and talk justice. Join us on the journey.