The very first week of this year’s Cold Weather Shelter was held at Fishersville United Methodist Church. They have separate rooms for males & females. This is a picture of the Women’s dorm area.
WARM Staff works hard to foster a sense of community & family for our guests, as this is something very new to a lot of them. Many times, building relationships with our guests allows us to work more efficiently to help them receive desperately needed services & support. The Cold Weather Shelter has a schedule of daily activities. This helps foster a sense of normality and continuity. Monday nights are “family meeting” nights, where Pastor Lee Reid leads a prayer/praise/discussion time. He goes over how things went the week before and discusses items that need the group’s attention. Tuesdays are movie nights, where a variety of movies & snacks are enjoyed by the group. Wednesdays are the church’s choice of activities. Thursday nights are for special presentations, such as employment services, vocational rehab, Valley Community Services Board, etc. Friday nights are BINGO nights, with small gift card prizes to local food establishments & stores. Saturday activities vary widely according to need & availabilities. One thing scheduled twice in December is a Clothing Ministry visit, to ensure our guests are dressed as warmly as possible. One more important activity scheduled once per month, is a visit from Augusta Health’s Homeless Healthcare Initiative.
Our opening evenng, our guests and volunteers were fed by the Greater Augusta Association of Realtors Young Professionals Club! They had a huge turn out and served two kinds of lasagna, rolls, salad & PIE!
The first night, after dinner, we held a Memorial Service for Jennifer Higgs, open for all who wished to attend. Many past guests and staff attended the service led by Pastor Beverly Robinson (Program Director at Ruth’s WARM House) and Pastor Lee Reid one of our area’s leading homeless person advocates.
Fishersville United Methodist Church provided hot dinners each day, breakfasts and lovingly packed to-go lunches for our guests, each day. On Thanksgiving Day, the church hosted our guests during the day so they would be warm. Much football was watched. 🙂
The 2019-2020 Cold Weather shelter season started with a large turnout: We hosted 17 guests the first night. The average age of our guests is 48.
Robby Cooley served his made-from-scratch barbeque one evening along with all the fixings (and don’t ask about the amazing secret sauces!) and a side of home-made sausage. You could feel the love! (And I think we may have a new chef for Men Who Cook!)
If you’d like to see this week’s video, please visit our Facebook page!