BBB Center for Character Ethics announced the recipients of the 18th annual Torch Award for Ethical Enterprising.

Westerville Area Resource Ministry, WARM is among six recipients, five businesses and one non-profit (WARM), who were selected to receive this prestigious award. WARM is celebrating 40 years compassionately serving the Westerville community and surrounding areas through programs and services which foster economic, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Throughout the last four decades as a choice food market and job services agency, WARM has provided millions of meals, logged thousands of volunteer hours and connected hundreds of clients to their jobs.  WARM’s signature value is restoring dignity and hope by offering a hand up, not a hand out.

“It is an honor and privilege to be recognized for our best practice of ethics which is a foundational principle upon which Westerville Area Resource Ministry began and has built its reputation the last 47 years.  This award is indeed reflective of the staff and volunteer base who have embraced the philosophy that ‘trust’ is to be earned.  We are deeply humbled by such prestigious recognition as a recipient of the Torch Award. It is our desire to be viewed with the highest of integrity and to live out the principles to which we’ve been called.”  Scott Marier, Executive Director, WARM

In April 2011, WARM also earned recognition from BBB for meeting all 20 criteria of Wise Giving Alliance Standards for Charity Accountability. These standards include governance, stewardship of funds, truthfulness in representation and disclosure of basic information to the public. WARM successfully proved compliance on all issues of review.  According to the Better Business Bureau documentation, ‘The overarching principle of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance Standards for Charity Accountability is full disclosure to donors and potential donors at the time of solicitation and thereafter.  As voluntary standards, they also go beyond the requirements of local, state and federal laws and regulations’.