The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seeks to follow the Savior’s teaching to love God and our neighbor. The Church engages in a global ministry to bless all of God’s children.

The “Caring for Those in Need 2025 Report” details the Church’s commitment to welfare, self-reliance, humanitarian aid, emergency relief, and volunteer service, with expenditures totaling US$1.58 billion. The Church provided assistance in 196 countries and territories, showing its global reach. This included 3,514 humanitarian projects worldwide. Church members volunteered 7.4 million hours of service at Church Welfare and Self-reliance facilities, in service missions, and in community service projects, demonstrating their dedication to caring for God’s children.

“We are guided by [Jesus Christ’s] example,” the First Presidency said in the report. “As The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we seek to follow Him by ministering to the sick, feeding the hungry, and comforting the afflicted. Ours is a ministry of great joy to all of God’s children.”

In 2025, Latter-day Saints and friends of the Church engaged in significant community-focused service. JustServe grew by 114,639 new users and 38,597 new projects. The platform surpassed 1 million registered users.

The work of caring also advanced through 13,789 welfare and self-reliance missionaries and the ministering efforts of more than 8.2 million Relief Society sisters around the world. Together, they strengthened individuals, families, and communities in quiet but meaningful ways.

“While the Church works globally, much of this meaningful service happens within our communities,” said Bishop W. Christopher Waddell, the Church’s Presiding Bishop. “It is inspiring to see members and friends of the Church participating in simple, daily acts of service as they strive to serve others as Christ would.”

The report also highlights programs that build long-term stability: 638 education projects, job training for 10,653 Deseret Industries associates, 2,412 weekly addiction recovery meetings, and participation by more than 142,000 people in self-reliance groups.

To address food insecurity, the Church’s 121 bishops’ storehouses across six countries donated over 37 million pounds of food — equivalent to about 31 million meals — to humanitarian organizations and food banks serving those in need.

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The report also highlights areas where the Church worked in deeper, sustained collaborative efforts — most notably its global initiative, Caring for Women and Children. The Church’s Relief Society General Presidency took a leading role. They convened eight global humanitarian organizations and grouped them into four consortia, each focused on projects benefiting women and children.

As a result of this collaboration, millions of women and children received vital resources to help them flourish. As of April 2025, the consortia helped 219,000 pregnant mothers receive prenatal care, 21.2 million children and mothers receive vitamins (which exceeded the 12 million goal), 1.87 million children be screened for malnutrition and treated if needed, and 141,000 families receive seeds and training to grow nutritious gardens at home.

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“Global progress begins by strengthening women, both globally and within our spheres of influence,” said Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson. “When we care for women and children through nutrition, maternal and newborn care, immunizations, and education, we are investing in a healthier and more hopeful future — one woman, one child, and one community at a time.”

Beyond humanitarian relief and community service, the report highlights additional ways the Church supported individuals and families in 2025. Family Services assisted 16,099 clients through self‑help resources, educational courses, group therapy and one‑on‑one counseling, providing spiritual and emotional support during moments of difficulty.

The Church also continued to invest in education and long‑term growth through tools such as the Perpetual Education Fund, BYU–Pathway Worldwide, the Benson Scholarship, EnglishConnect, and Succeed in School. These offerings complement the Church’s broad self‑reliance efforts, which in 2025 reached 142,494 participants through free virtual and in-person courses covering personal finance, emotional resilience, starting a business, and other essential skills.

The 2025 report is available at CaringReport.ChurchofJesusChrist.org, where readers can explore an interactive map showing the locations of every humanitarian project completed during the year. The report is published in 17 languages.

In addition to reporting outcomes, the summary encourages individuals and families to take part in simple, meaningful acts of service. The web experience includes a page outlining 25 ways to participate in the global initiative to support women and children — such as learning about local organizations, using personal talents to bless others, preparing a meal for someone in need, finding volunteer opportunities on JustServe.org, or donating clothing, food, and other essential items.

The report places today’s global service in its historical context. The Church’s formal welfare program — announced in 1936 — was created to care for members in need and strengthen their capacity for self‑reliance. In 1984, the Church expanded its outreach worldwide through its humanitarian program. Those foundations continue to guide the Church’s efforts today as it seeks to bless both members and friends of the faith through welfare, self‑reliance, humanitarian assistance, and volunteer service.

A significant portion of what is highlighted in the report is made possible by the volunteer efforts of Latter-day Saints, who donate time, resources, and compassion in thousands of settings across the globe. Their contributions — combined with the dedication of collaborators such as UNICEF, the World Food Programme, Project HOPE, CARE, WaterAid, ShelterBox, and others — allow the Church to amplify its ability to care for those in need.

“This work reflects a coordinated effort to address real needs in practical and lasting ways,” said Blaine Maxfield, managing director of the Church’s Welfare and Self-Reliance Services. “By aligning resources, expertise, and local knowledge, we respond to urgent needs while also strengthening the self-reliance of individuals and communities over time. Through thoughtful collaboration, these efforts support greater stability, self‑reliance, and opportunity around the world.”

Each aspect of this global undertaking to serve others is part of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the First Presidency said.

“As we serve others, we are truly serving Him,” they said. “In this way, each of us is answering His call to be a light to the world and to follow the Savior’s pattern of loving our neighbor. We testify that Jesus Christ is at the center of this great work. May God bless you abundantly for your goodness, and may you feel His love as you continue to love and care for His children.”

The European Commission has approved more than €103 million for seven strategic projects under the LIFE programme, backing initiatives in Finland, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain. Brussels is presenting the package not only as environmental policy, but as an investment in economic resilience, public health and Europe’s long-term competitiveness.

The new funding, announced through the European Commission’s press service, covers around 36% of a wider €284 million envelope for long-term projects intended to run well into the next decade. Together, they focus on climate adaptation, water resilience, marine restoration, circular economy reforms and more sustainable land use.

That framing is politically important. At a time when the European Union is under pressure to reconcile climate goals with industrial competitiveness and rising public concern over the cost of transition, the Commission is increasingly presenting green spending as a form of strategic investment. Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra argued that climate investment is “essential for our economy, our security and our independence,” while Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall described Europe’s natural infrastructure as a foundation for resilience and competitiveness.

A programme with a broader political role

The LIFE programme is the EU’s only funding instrument dedicated entirely to environment, climate and clean-energy objectives. Since 1992, it has supported more than 6,500 projects across the Union and associated countries. The latest package also fits into a larger policy architecture: the projects are meant to support the European Climate Law, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the Water Framework Directive and the bloc’s marine and mobility goals.

In practical terms, Brussels is trying to show that climate policy can also mean flood protection, cleaner water, stronger coastal economies, lower material use in industry and better preparedness for extreme weather. That is one reason the Commission is stressing that these projects should mobilise additional national and private investment, rather than function as isolated EU grants.

The move also comes as the Commission signals that LIFE-style action will remain part of its thinking for the next EU budget cycle, including in future proposals linked to competitiveness and decarbonisation. In other words, this is not just a set of environmental grants. It is also a preview of how Brussels wants to defend green spending politically in the years ahead.

Seven countries, seven priorities

The projects are spread across very different geographies, but each is tied to a concrete vulnerability or structural transition:

• Finland: ACWA LIFE will receive €16.5 million to restore and protect streams, lakes, coastal waters, river basins and groundwater.
• France: LIFE ADAPT EST gets €15.6 million to improve climate resilience in the Grand Est region, including water governance and infrastructure adaptation.
• Greece: LIFE SIP GR Blue receives €8.9 million for marine ecosystem restoration and action against pollution, litter and underwater noise.
• Netherlands: CEL4LIFE is backed with €6.9 million to help Limburg cut raw material use in chemicals, manufacturing and construction by half by 2030.
• Portugal: LIFE IP AGRILOOP will receive €15.8 million to promote circular solutions in the Azores across agroforestry, agrifood and tourism.
• Slovakia: NatAdaptSK gets €10.1 million for nature-based solutions covering water, forests, agriculture and biodiversity.
• Spain: LIFE HumedalES receives €29.7 million and stands out as the largest project ever financed under the LIFE programme.

Spain’s project is the most eye-catching of the seven. According to the Commission and the CINEA project summary, LIFE HumedalES aims to restore around 26,200 hectares of wetlands across 107 Natura 2000 sites. That gives it significance well beyond Spain, because wetlands are central to flood control, biodiversity protection, carbon storage and water security across Europe.

Why the package matters

On one level, the announcement is a routine funding story. On another, it shows how the EU is adjusting the language of the Green Deal era. The Commission is no longer speaking about climate only in terms of emissions and targets. It is also speaking about droughts, floods, island economies, industrial raw materials and water systems that underpin everyday life.

That broader language reflects political reality. Across Europe, climate policy now has to prove that it can deliver visible benefits in regions facing extreme weather, strained ecosystems and economic uncertainty. Projects like these are one way Brussels is trying to make that case: not through grand declarations alone, but through local interventions that can be counted, mapped and measured.

The challenge, as always, will be delivery. Strategic projects of this kind are designed to operate over many years and across many authorities, which makes them potentially transformative but also institutionally demanding. Their success will depend not only on EU money, but on whether national, regional and private partners follow through.

The Commission’s latest announcement therefore says something larger about Europe’s current mood. The green transition is still moving forward, but it is being defended in increasingly pragmatic terms: resilience, security, competitiveness and quality of life. For Brussels, that may be the most important political message behind this €103 million package.

For readers following the wider evolution of EU environmental funding, this latest decision also builds on earlier LIFE-backed action covered by The European Times in its report on €86 million for climate resilience and water quality projects.

Europe spent Tuesday confronting a familiar strategic weakness in real time: its exposure to imported energy. As ministers weighed emergency options and EU leaders focused again on competitiveness, the latest external shock also revived one of the bloc’s deepest internal arguments — whether Europe moved too far away from nuclear power.

Europe’s most consequential story on 10 March is not a single summit line or market move, but the way several developments suddenly converged into one political reality. The G7 stopped short of immediately releasing strategic oil reserves and instead asked the International Energy Agency to prepare scenarios. At the same time, EU institutions and governments sharpened their focus on energy prices, inflation risks and industrial competitiveness. Then, in Paris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used the IAEA Nuclear Energy Summit to argue that Europe had made a “strategic mistake” by reducing nuclear power.

Another external shock, the same European vulnerability

The immediate trigger is the wider Middle East crisis and renewed concern that disruption around the Strait of Hormuz could once again transmit geopolitical conflict into European bills, industrial costs and political pressure. According to European Council President António Costa’s speech to EU ambassadors on Tuesday, the Union must make 2026 “the year of European competitiveness,” linking economic resilience directly to sovereignty. That ambition becomes harder to sustain when each external shock immediately raises questions about supply security, affordability and industrial survival.

This is why today’s energy story is bigger than oil prices alone. It touches the core of Europe’s economic model. The continent remains more exposed than the United States to imported fossil fuels, and that exposure feeds directly into manufacturing costs, transport, food prices and household anxiety. When energy becomes scarce or volatile, Europe does not experience it as an abstract market problem. It experiences it through weaker industry, tighter public budgets and renewed pressure on families still carrying the effects of recent inflation.

Von der Leyen reopens the nuclear fault line

That is what gave unusual weight to von der Leyen’s intervention in Paris. As reported on Tuesday, she said Europe’s decision to reduce nuclear energy had increased dependence on imported fossil fuels, noting that nuclear’s share of European electricity generation has fallen sharply since 1990. She also announced a new €200 million EU guarantee for private investment in small modular reactor technology, signalling that Brussels wants to be more active in the sector even if member states remain divided.

That intervention does not settle Europe’s nuclear argument. It intensifies it. Germany’s environment minister pushed back the same day, defending wind and solar as cleaner and safer. Austria and Luxembourg have long resisted a stronger EU embrace of nuclear, while France sees it as central to industrial resilience and low-carbon electricity. What is changing now is the political frame. The debate is no longer only about climate targets or technology choices. It is increasingly about sovereignty, price stability and the cost of relying on events far beyond Europe’s borders.

In practice, the emerging European argument is more complex than a simple nuclear-versus-renewables contest. Europe has expanded renewable energy quickly, but it still needs stable generation, stronger grids, more storage, faster permitting and lower-cost electricity for industry. Nuclear is returning to the centre of the conversation not because the debate is finished, but because the stress test has returned.

Climate policy is also being pulled into the emergency

The same pressure is now reshaping the EU’s carbon-market debate. According to draft summit conclusions seen by Reuters, EU leaders are set to ask the European Commission to present a review of the Emissions Trading System by July, with the aim of reducing carbon-price volatility and limiting its impact on electricity prices while preserving the ETS’s central role in the transition.

That is a revealing signal. Brussels is not abandoning climate policy, but it is under growing pressure to show that decarbonisation can coexist with affordability and industrial survival. If energy prices are seen as punitive, support for the transition weakens. If climate tools are seen as untouchable while households and factories absorb the shock, political backlash grows. Europe is therefore entering a more difficult phase: not whether to decarbonise, but how to do so without turning vulnerability into discontent.

A test of sovereignty — and of social fairness

There is also a deeper political message in the timing. Europe has spent months speaking the language of defence, competitiveness and strategic autonomy. As The European Times reported this week, Costa has been making the case for a more sovereign Europe able to defend itself, compete economically and act with greater independence. Today’s energy shock shows where that ambition still runs into reality.

The social dimension should not be overlooked. High energy prices hit hardest where resilience is weakest: lower-income households, small businesses, rural communities and energy-intensive workers. Energy policy is never only about megawatts, carbon markets or industrial planning. In Europe, it is also about dignity, social peace and whether the green transition is experienced as protection or punishment.

That is why this story deserves to lead the European agenda today. It is about markets, but also about citizens. It is about power generation, but also about trust in institutions. The immediate panic may ease if oil prices stabilise, but the deeper lesson will remain. Europe cannot build real strategic autonomy while every major external crisis threatens to raise its bills, weaken its industry and reopen its internal energy wars.

Today’s shock has not resolved Europe’s energy debate. But it has made it impossible to postpone.