OPINION |
By 9 p.m. Saturday, most of the ladies who’d come to the women’s cold weather shelter at Grace United Methodist Church had settled onto their cots for the evening.
Amy, my volunteer partner for the night, and I were beginning to worry if the shelter was going to hit the capacity of 25 women.
I’ve been volunteering for the women’s shelter for a few years, and I’ve never had to turn anyone away.
It’s something I pray never happens.
As a journalist who writes about homelessness and housing insecurity, I’ve looked into the eyes of people who are afraid they might freeze to death. Their expressions are either wide-eyed terror or just despair and anguish.
It’s an awful, awful thing.
But as a volunteer at the shelter, I get to see that expression turn to relief and hope, especially when it’s someone who arrives at the shelter in the middle of the night, unsure if they can come in. I love unlocking the door and letting people inside on a freezing night, telling them we have space for them, soup and snacks if they’re hungry, and they are welcome to use the bathroom.
But this past Saturday, we were getting close to having to turn people away.
The doorbell rang and I headed up the stairs to answer it. There it was: wide-eyed terror.
In the name of Jesus Christ, please let me in.
Young woman at Grace United Shelter
“In the name of Jesus Christ, please let me in,” the young woman said as I opened the door.
I have no idea what was going on with her or why she arrived late and missed the evening meal around 5:30. I led her to the cots and pointed to one of the few remaining spaces.
She was number 22. By the next morning, we had 24 women.
That number worries me because it’s still early in the season. As the cold weather continues, people who have “toughed it out” in vehicles and tents will grow weary and seek shelter. The shelter numbers always go up in January, February and March.
But unlike previous years, many of the crisis cold weather shelters have already been full this month. These shelter sites open when the overnight temperature dips to 32 or colder — and all are completely volunteer-driven.
(Other crisis cold weather shelters include: the men’s shelter at East Sunshine Church of Christ, all-gender shelters at Unity of Springfield and Asbury United Methodist Church, and the family shelter at Connecting Grounds Church.)
In all the time I’ve volunteered at the shelter (and I’ll be honest — I only volunteer to spend the night a few times a month), I’ve never written about my experiences.
I’m only doing so now because the need for volunteers is critical this winter and especially this week and into the holiday weekend.
We are facing dangerous winter weather starting Thursday and several churches have agreed to open their buildings as shelters Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Some will stay open during the day. But these new shelter sites need volunteers — even just for a few hours. (Read more about these new emergency shelters here.)
And beyond this week’s arctic blast, the Crisis Cold Weather Shelter program’s pool of volunteers is incredibly shallow this year.
Just last night, I got the group text from Grace’s volunteer coordinator, begging for volunteers in the coming days.
Many different ways to help
You don’t have to be an overnight volunteer. There are so many other ways to help keep this incredibly vulnerable population safe this winter.
Volunteers are needed to be at the shelter site in the evenings for a few hours to greet guests and help them set up cots. Volunteers are needed in the mornings to help clean. Volunteers are needed to help transport folks’ pets to shelters that allow them to be their furry companion for the night.
Every night a meal is served at Grace. Volunteers are needed to prepare and serve food.
Get connected to volunteer
Connecting Grounds Pastor Christie Love created a Google Sign-Up document to help with volunteers during the arctic snap this week. Find it here.
If you want to volunteer for the regular Crisis Cold Weather Shelter sites during this winter storm, here is a Google Sign-Up document.
Community Partnership of the Ozarks has information about how to donate and volunteer for the Crisis Cold Weather Shelter program on its website, if you are interested in helping beyond this weekend.
And if you are unable to volunteer, consider throwing some money at the problem. The Connecting Grounds Church and the Gathering Friends are two organizations that offer immediate help to those who are unsheltered and at-risk of becoming unsheltered.
I realize these are Band-Aids, not permanent solutions to the problem.
But these Band-Aids will save lives.
What’s it like to volunteer?
I can only speak about what it’s like to volunteer at the women’s shelter at Grace. It’s my understanding the other cold weather shelter sites operate pretty much the same. Each site needs two overnight volunteers who take turns sleeping.
At the women’s shelter, one volunteer sleeps from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. and the other sleeps from 2 to 6 a.m. We sleep on an air mattress in the choir room of the church, which also has its own bathroom.
I bring a sleeping bag, pillow, my laptop and a Monster energy drink, just in case. Normally, when it’s my turn to be awake, I use the church’s Wi-Fi to watch shows and movies on Amazon. I binge watched “Schitt’s Creek” on my shelter nights last winter.
These are low barrier shelters, meaning guests don’t have to show ID, their information isn’t entered into any system. They just sign their names and sign up for a chore in the morning.
There’s no sobriety requirement — just as long as they don’t disrupt the other guests. They cannot bring alcohol or substances into the building. But I’ve never really had an issue with this.
Almost all the guests come in and just want to go to sleep.
We serve decaffeinated coffee with snacks and soups in the evenings. In the morning, we have regular coffee, oatmeal and breakfast sandwiches donated by a local gas station.
Lights out at 10 p.m., and back on at 6 a.m.
In the morning, guests clean up their area, put away their cots and do their chores. Each lady gets a bus pass and there’s a bus stop across the street. Everybody has to be off the property by 7 a.m.
Our volunteer coordinator is always a phone call or text away, and we have the authority to tell people to leave if they are not following the rules.
That almost never happens. Oh, you might have someone get mad about something, or maybe two ladies bickering. Almost always a firm, ‘Quiet down or you’ll have to leave,’ resolves the issue.
For the most part, the guests appreciate the volunteers and are so grateful for the warm, safe place to sleep.
They’ll tell you that over and over.
I can promise you will meet some really incredible and kind people, some of whom have experienced pain, trauma and mental health struggles that I can’t imagine.
And most of them are so generous, despite having very little themselves.
Lovely woman daydreams of helping a child give away presents at Christmas
On Sunday morning, for example, a woman who has stayed at the shelter for a few years presented me with a bag of handmade scarves.
Now, this woman is lovely, inside and out. She is always neatly put together down to her red lipstick and matching hats and gloves. She always signs up to clean both bathrooms, which is probably the least desirable chore on the list.
And if this lady sat next to you at church, you’d never guess that she sleeps at the shelter and has been homeless for years.
But back to Sunday morning and that bag of scarves. She told me some church ladies had made them and handed them out to folks at the Veterans Coming Home Center, a daytime drop-in center.
The scarves are beautiful, the woman told me. But she didn’t need them. Instead, she wanted so much to gift the scarves to a little girl who could then give the scarves as Christmas presents to her mom or grandma or whomever.
Watching her pull each scarf out of the bag and feel its softness while daydreaming out loud about a little girl giving them away at Christmas was absolutely mesmerizing.
That lovely woman is among hundreds of unsheltered people who are counting on the Crisis Cold Weather Shelter program this winter.
