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.