ABOVE: Crosspoint Human Services’ Tara Wright and Serve Together Vermilion County’s Molly Goodwin address audience at Friday morning’s STEPUP meeting, talking about Continuum of Care’s commitment during this Homeless Awareness Month and Year Round.
November is Homeless Awareness month. But not taking for granted what we have, and remembering those that don’t have what we have, are more than just things to remember during this special awareness month and Thanksgiving season. During Friday (Nov 15th) morning’s STEPUP meeting at Second Church of Christ, Tara Wright from Crosspoint Human Services and Molly Goodwin from Serve Together Vermilion County addressed those in attendance about recent and current efforts to help those in need. Molly Goodwin talked about 1,700 sack lunches being handed out this year outside The Dwelling Place by First Presbyterian Church. But also what can be done during this Homeless Awareness Month, as weather is turning colder.
AUDIO: They need shelter as it gets cold. That’s the biggest thing, to get them in and out of the cold. But, in regards to what we can do, individually, on a daily basis; is just stop and help them with food, with resources, with just anything that would help them. Blankets, warm coats, shoes; just everyday items like a note pad and pen is a huge deal to them. So anything like that would be absolutely amazing for these folks.
Going on right now is “Mission Christmas,” where item and monetary donations from you can help put together gift bags of important necessities for the homeless this holiday season.
AUDIO: We are putting items like hats, coats, gloves, blankets, some toiletries; watches, wallets, notepads and pens. All of those things together, just in a big gift bag, that we’ll distribute all throughout the community. So again, you can contact me, and I’d be happy to meet and collect those items as well. We have some folks here at Second Church, some folks at Crossroads Christian Church, and Connection Church as well; that are all collecting items for those.
On the topic of “watches,” Molly Goodwin pointed out how that is a great example of something the homeless need that we often take for granted: KNOWING WHAT TIME IT IS. Many homeless do not have watches, let alone cell phones with clocks. So they can literally find themselves estimating what time it is by the position of the sun, and therefore missing important things that could help them.
AUDIO: And especially when there’s places that are serving food, and have resources available for them. If they don’t know what time it is, they don’t know what time to be there. So yes; watches are a huge, huge blessing for these folks.
You can go to servetogethervermilioncounty.com for more on how you can help, as well as go to crosspointhumanservice.org for more on Vermilion County Continuum of Care efforts.
