GIVERS
MEASURABLE IMPACT Raleigh Rescue Mission’s new CEO fits right in by CATHERINE CURRIN
J
ohn Luckett knows the power of an advocate. The new CEO of Raleigh Rescue Mission (RRM) grew up in extreme poverty in rural Mississippi, but a local family took a chance on him. They helped him learn to read, and used their resources to help Luckett’s father find a job. He’s channeled the gratitude from that experience to inform his life’s work, and his new role at RRM will surely keep him on that path. “What we’re doing is more
58 | WALTER
photography by TYLER CUNNINGHAM
complicated than giving someone a meal and a place to stay. At the Mission, we go deep with these individuals to help get them back into mainstream society.” Most recently CEO of The Good Samaritan Health Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Luckett says he was drawn to the sense of community in Raleigh. “It seems like there are people, organizations and businesses in the Raleigh and Triangle area who are actively seeking out how to help others,” Luckett says.
“There is a desire to partner and work together to address community issues.” He says RRM enticed him because it creates a measurable difference for the people it serves. “I thought to myself: What kind of organization do I want to be a part of that will really make an impact? Where, as a result of what you’re doing, are the individuals that have been changed?” He found that in Raleigh Rescue Mission—an organization that drills down to the root of the problem when it
