Freeze Shelter at Mercy Community Church
For the past three years Mercy Community Church has partnered with St. John's Lutheran Church and Druid Hills Methodist Church to provide an emergency shelter for the homeless living in the Poncey-Highlands on nights when it is getting to extremely cold temperatures. We need volunteers to stay overnight or help with greeting! Email Drew Bonner at bonnerandrewt@mail.ctsnet.edu if you would like to be put on the on-call list for volunteering.
Mercy serves these men and women day in and day out and knows them well. It is a diverse group of folks who normally have no place else to go. Many of our folks have urban camps around town, but 28 degrees is too cold to be sleeping outside. Mercy and St. John's will be keeping an eye on the weather forecast and will email when it appears that temperatures look to be freezing in the coming weeks. We will have two shelters this year, the women (usually no more than four ladies) will be hosted at Druid Hills Methodist Church. The men (about 20) will be hosted at St. John's Lutheran Church.
Feel free to sign-up with a friend. An experienced volunteer will work with you the first time you come. Overnighters should be at the shelter by 8:30 and will stay until 7am. So long as you sleep well in new places, you will get a full night's rest! Lights will be turned out around 10 to 10:30pm. You will be responsible for making coffee in the morning and getting folks up at about 6:30am. Everyone should be out the door by 7am.
The shelter will provide beds, blankets, and pillows for overnighters. The volunteers will again be in a room with a lock and need not to be concerned about any valuables. Please email Drew Bonner at bonnerandrewt@mail.ctsnet.edu if you would like to be put on the freeze shelter volunteer list. This does not sign you up for a specific night, but Drew or others will notify you of days for which volunteers are needed.