We started on one street in Jacksonville.

A priest looked at the poverty around his church and decided the tools to fix it already existed. The work was putting them in people's hands. That was 1989. We are still at it.

Our Programs → Give

Rows of leafy greens growing in the NativeFresh aquaponics greenhouse behind the Weaver Center.

The NativeFresh aquaponics greenhouse behind the Weaver Center, Jacksonville.

FreshMinistries began at the Church of Our Saviour on Jacksonville's Eastside. The neighborhood had good people and few options. Our founder, the Rev. Dr. Robert V. Lee III, believed the way out of poverty was not charity that comes and goes. It was skills, a job, and a business a person could own.

So that is what we built. We teach financial literacy and life skills. We train people for real work. We help them start businesses. And on land behind our center, we grow food in greenhouses that run on sun and recycled water.

We are a Christian ministry, founded by an Episcopal priest. We serve anyone who walks through the door, whatever they believe. The same way a faith-based hospital treats every patient, we help every person.

It is slow work. We are still here.

The Rev. Dr. Robert V. Lee III, founder and chief executive of FreshMinistries, in his office.

Meet our founder.

The Rev. Dr. Robert V. Lee III, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Lee was rector of the Church of Our Saviour when he started FreshMinistries. He studied at Vanderbilt, the University of Georgia, Yale, and New York Theological Seminary. He served on the Presidential Advisory Council on Financial Literacy and the Governor's Faith-Based Advisory Board.

None of that is the reason people trust him. They trust him because he has spent decades on the same streets, keeping the promises he made. When he says poverty has a fix, he can point to the person it fixed.

One belief, carried a long way.

It started on a Jacksonville street and now reaches three continents.

1989

FreshMinistries is incorporated in Jacksonville.

1994

We open our doors and begin the work: financial literacy, life skills, and job training on the Eastside.

2010

The Beaver Street Enterprise Center in Jacksonville.

The Beaver Street Enterprise Center is named Business Incubator of the Year, national recognition for a business incubator built in a neighborhood most people wrote off.

Visit Beaver Street

2014

A group of students holding up their completion certificates.

A U.S. Department of Labor grant launches FreshPath, our program for court-involved and high-risk youth.

Explore FreshPath

2017

The Rev. Dr. Robert V. Lee III beside the growing towers in the aquaponics greenhouse.

We open our first aquaponics greenhouse behind the Weaver Center. Fish feed the plants, the plants clean the water, and the food goes to schools and neighbors.

See NativeFresh

2021

FreshMinistries and local partners breaking ground on a greenhouse site in the Caribbean.

We open six greenhouses on St. Croix, in a territory that imports almost all its food. The Jacksonville idea now works on an island.

2022

We build a greenhouse in Mpumalanga, South Africa, in the late Archbishop Tutu's home country.

2024

A training hub opens in Randburg, Johannesburg, where growers from across Southern Africa come to learn the system.

2026

The Desmond Tutu Programme to End Global Hunger gets a home: the Tutu family house in Soweto, restored with Rotary International, with a greenhouse growing in the garden.

Our global work

Explore our programs

We measure our work against the United Nations' goals for a fairer world. Three sit at the center of what we do.

A LifePoint Career Institute graduate in cap and gown on her graduation day.

No poverty.

A job and a business are the surest way out.

Radishes growing in a FreshMinistries greenhouse bed.

Zero hunger.

Greenhouses that grow food where food runs short.

Good health.

Counseling and care for people rebuilding their lives.

One organization, one belief.Two flags to fly it under.

You will see two names in our work.

FreshMinistries

Jacksonville and the United States

Be The Change International

Africa and the Caribbean

The tools already exist. Help us put them in people's hands.

It pays a teenager for a summer of real work. It stocks a greenhouse. It puts an adult through job training. Tell us your name and we will tell you exactly where it went.

Give today Volunteer Become a partner

The people who do the work.

Twenty-seven staff across Jacksonville: headquarters, the Weaver Center, Beaver Street, and the NativeFresh greenhouse.

The Rev. Dr. Robert V. Lee IIIFounder & CEO

Shelly MarinoChief of Staff

Bobby LeeDirector of Organizational Strategy & Partnerships

Michelle HarcourtExecutive Director, Weaver Community Center

Terrance BrisbaneBSEC Executive Director

Debra DixonFinance Director

Meet the full team Meet the board