A LEGACY OF SERVICE: THANK YOU, DAVID SCOTT!

After 35 years of service, David Scott retired from his position as CEO/Executive Director of the Market Street Mission on December 31, 2024. On January 1, 2025, Chief Operating Officer George Moussab began serving as Interim CEO while the Mission’s Board of Directors undertakes its search to identify the next CEO for Market Street Mission.

Dave Scott served as Executive Director of the Mission since 1989, and he has left an incredible legacy here!

Under his leadership, the Mission saw tremendous growth in its multi-phased Emergency Assistance and Life Change Recovery Program, which includes both non-residential outreach and residential treatment. He implemented treatment plans based on individual contracts that integrate Christian values with standard clinical practices for rehabilitation. In 2023 and 2024, Newsweek Magazine recognized the Market Street Mission as one of America’s Best Addiction Treatment Centers. In 2024, Dave saw his 100th Life Change addiction recovery class graduate from the program.

During his 35-year tenure, the Mission expanded in staff and resources, doubling the size of the facility in Morristown with a capital campaign in 1991-95. Additionally, he led the expansions to the Jersey Shore with the Jersey Shore Rescue Mission (now called the Market Street Mission – Jersey Shore) located in Asbury Park (2007), and the Market Street Mission – Sussex County located in Newton (2021), as well as five sober homes in Morris and Monmouth Counties. Today, our three Mission sites serve over 140,000 meals and provide more than 44,000 nights of shelter per year. Our two Thrift Stores in Morristown and Asbury Park serve thousands each year with donation pickups and clothing and merchandise at a reasonable cost.

Dave has spent his life serving a variety of ministries, having grown up with a desire to help people, not just from various addictions, but most importantly to see them come to the Lord Jesus Christ and experience true life transformation. After a career as a chaplain’s assistant in the Army, he served at The Goodwill Home and Rescue Mission in Newark, NJ, where he was the Superintendent of the Mission that housed 90 men. In 1984, he began serving at Yonkers Gospel Mission, directing their residential treatment program which housed 66 men, providing meals, clothing, shelter, spiritual help, and counseling.

Dave received his BA in Behavioral Science, as well as his MA in Counseling, from California State University. He is a Certified Clinical Supervisor (CSS), a Licensed Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LCADC), and a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). He belongs to the Citygate Network and the Gospel Rescue Mission Fellowship.

The Board of Directors of the Market Street Mission, along with our staff and Life Change Recovery Program alumni, are eternally grateful to Dave for his decades of meritorious service to the Lord and his community. His record of remarkable achievement is unparalleled not only in New Jersey, but nationally in the Rescue movement. We commend him for his dedication to the Lord’s work and convey to him our sincere thanks and blessings.

The Market Street Mission family both past and present gathered to pay honor and tribute to the ministry work of Dave Scott on December 5. It was a night of laughter and tears. During the evening, Dave was recognized by local and state leaders with awards, plaques and citations. Mayor Tim Dougherty of Morristown declared December 5th as David Scott Day for the city of Morristown, and the Market Street Mission Board announced the dedication of the building housing the Market Street Mission – Jersey Shore in Asbury Park as the G. David Scott Building.

Yet, with all the awards, gifts, citations and plaques given to Dave, there stood a man who knew those were the things that moth and rust would destroy. There stood a man who knew his life work wasn’t done for the notoriety or the celebration of self, but was done to see men come to know and love the true and living God, and to see men saved and sanctified through the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ!