When Pastor Joshua Robinson founded the Back 2 School Giveaway in 2009, he wanted families to arrive as guests, not as recipients of charity. He structured the event as a community fair, offering clothing, food, school supplies, and on-site services to families getting ready for the school year. The giveaway grew to serve more than 5,000 people and depended on extensive fundraising, volunteer recruitment, large-scale logistics, and partnerships among churches, schools, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. The City of Pocatello, the local Chamber of Commerce, and the NAACP each recognized his leadership of the event. In 2021, as he prepared to step into the lead role at his church, Grace Lutheran Church agreed to partner with him and continue the work.

That event is one part of a longer record of service. Joshua Robinson has been on staff at Gate City Christian Church in Pocatello, Idaho, since 1998, first as youth pastor, then as associate pastor from 2008 to 2024, and now as Lead Teaching Pastor and Director of Discipleship. In youth ministry he grew a group of four students into more than 75 meeting midweek, and that group became active in service projects and outreach to teenagers across Pocatello.

His sense of service began abroad. He spent his senior year of high school on a mission assignment in Mexico, teaching English and math at a native school, and the need he witnessed there led him away from a planned career in law and toward ministry. He returned to Mexico for a two-month assignment in 2000.

Uganda became a long-term commitment. He led mission teams there in 2008, 2010, and 2012, and medical mission teams in 2009, 2011, and 2013. As director of Hands 4 Uganda, a nongovernmental organization serving Ugandan families, he recruited U.S. sponsors for individual children, worked with the team in Uganda to fund projects and expand the school facility, and traveled there each year to evaluate progress and build relationships with other ministries. That work helped the organization expand medical care for students, establish a farm for families to work, and develop an education system running from primary school through high school. The connection is personal as well: one of his three daughters was adopted from Uganda. In 2026 he took part in a mission trip to Spain.

For those who know Joshua Robinson, Pocatello is where that commitment has taken root. He and his wife, Jen, give together as a team, supporting their church and other charities, and they have volunteered extensively with local churches, food pantries, and the Salvation Army.

Service also shapes his counseling work. He counsels church members and people from the wider community facing addiction, trauma, grief, and family difficulty, drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and trauma-informed care. He holds a Master of Arts in Counseling, Human Services, with an emphasis in Executive Leadership from Hope International University, a Bachelor of Arts in Educational Psychology from Pacific Christian College, and an Associate of Science in Biblical Studies from Boise Bible College, where he graduated as valedictorian.

Pastor Joshua Robinson grew up in southeast Idaho with a love of the outdoors, which later led to work as a National Outdoor Leadership School instructor and Wilderness EMT. He is a certified fitness trainer. Jen is a physician assistant who treats cancer patients, and together they are raising their three daughters in Pocatello.