BBB Center for Character Ethics awarded the Westerville Areas Resource Ministry WARM the Torch Award for Ethical Enterprising in 2012.

WARM was among six recipients, five businesses and one non-profit (WARM), who were selected to receive the prestigious award. WARM is  now celebrating 50 years compassionately serving the Westerville community and surrounding areas through programs and services which foster economic, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Throughout the last five 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.

WARM was honored 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 50 years.  This award is indeed reflective of the staff and volunteer base who have embraced the philosophy that ‘trust’ is to be earned.  It is WARM's desire to be viewed with the highest of integrity and to live out the principles to which we’ve been called.

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’.