As you might know, our church will be hosting a family in a homeless situation at the Day House for a week, starting on Sunday, May 23. This time around, we’ll be serving a mom and her precious 5 month old!
While the original plan was to host the family in our church building, it has proven to be a very busy time for our volunteers, so we made the decision to reduce our volunteer needs by having the family stay at the Family Promise Day House downtown. We’ve been doing something similar over the past year as we’ve dealt with the pandemic lockdown and a closed church building, but this time around will be slightly different because we’re not in contactless mode and volunteers are encouraged to hang out with the family if they’re comfortable doing so. Taking care of a baby by yourself is tough and we want to be as helpful as she needs us to be!
Our main volunteers will be meal makers, who will be dropping off the meals with the family, and van drivers, who will be taking the mom to and from work and taking the baby to childcare. Our support church, Crossroads, will also be providing breakfast, lunch and snacks for the week, along with helping with the evening meals. Thank you so much, Crossroads!
Our next host week will be August 8th, and we will hopefully be ready to host families in our church by then. Since we’ll soon be limited in space, there’s still some fuzziness on the logistics, but discussions will be held over the summer.
We are always looking for volunteers to help with this program, which typically has up to 50 volunteer slots throughout the week. I’ll be announcing volunteer training and refresher training over the next several months, so keep an eye on Light newsletter and Facebook.
We have been graciously tasked to be God’s hands and feet for these beloved folks, and it is often a bit daunting, so we are grateful for your thoughts and prayers as we go into next week.
Thank you again for all your love and support!
Your Volunteer Coordinator,
Erin DeGroot
eddicreative@gmail.com
