Last Cold Night This Week - Choir Performs for the General Assembly

Last night was another cold one as we continue to have an overflow of clients. Out of the 413 men that stayed at the Mission last night, 108 of them laid on mats that filled our dining room and day shelter. A few of the men elected to sit and sleep on the donated church pews that line our hallway leading to the dining room. The women and family campus housed a total of 132 which included 32 children. Total for the night was 545 down about 100 over previous nights the past 7 days.

Our Child Development Center is back up and running, however we are missing our director who is on maternity leave. The local Red Cross has been operating a temporary community shelter at a nearby church which closed yesterday. We received four homeless families and two single men from that temporary program last night and today.

On another note, the Kentucky General Assembly hosted the Mission's Gospel Choir in its chambers to open their legislative session. The choir, singing in a cappella, presented a rendition of "The Star- Spangled Banner" to a standing audience with hands on their chest. The choir engagement was arranged by State Representative Tom Riner. Members of the choir stated that they were humbled by the experience (go to www.waysidechristianmission.org to view a video of the presentation and other Mission news).

A Quilt for the Coldest Night

The cold, snow and ice have really been making an impact in our area. As you can imagine, at the Mission we have seen record numbers. One evening we had to open an additional overflow space for men in the dining room of the single women’s facility. About six hundred and fifty men, women and children were under our roofs that evening. When the electricity failed at our family and women’s shelter we had to make additional adjustments. Until the power was restored the women were housed in the men’s dining room and the families stayed in a fellowship hall of a nearby church. By evening we had the emergency portable generators hooked into the lighting and furnaces allowing our guests to return that evening.
 
Last night a volunteer group from AT&T who has worked for months holding life skills classes in our women and families shelter presented the Mission with a quilt. The volunteers and our clients had worked on the quilt for months and recently made the final adjustments. This beautiful quilt, made with love and commitment, was presented on the coldest night of the year: temperatures in the single digits and wind chills below zero. We plan to mount the quilt in our new family and women’s facility once we have completed our decision making process and secured a site.