Tag Archive for: #mensshelter

Community Partners of Hope

CPOH Shelter Making Progress Toward May Move; Many Ways For Community To Help

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The transformation from church facility to men’s shelter continues at the former City Road Methodist Church location, and there are many opportunities for the community to help in advance of a hopeful May move-in date.

An immediate need is for groups to provide or sponsor meals for the next couple of months, according to information from Community Partners of Hope, especially for dates leading up to and including Easter Sunday – Most needed dates are Mar. 28, Mar. 29 and Mar. 31 (Easter Sunday).

Sign up HERE with this link if you or your organization can provide a meal for the men at the shelter.

There are numerous other ways to help:

  • Replenish snack items – PopTarts or breakfast bars, peanut butter crackers, bags of single-size chips and other items individually wrapped items that the men can take with them during the day
  • Laundry pods

Visit THIS LINK HERE for dropoff instructions for donated items.

Church groups, civic organizations and others can provide help through service projects – here are just a few tasks that need to be completed:

  • Help assemble and paint 3 new bunkbeds
  • Help disassemble, move, re-assemble and touch up 5 existing beds
  • Help paint exterior doors and windows (this can happen after the move)
  • Help move items from old shelter to new – washer/dryer, shelving, supplies and more
  • Clean bathrooms, carpet, etc. in the sanctuary wing to make it ready to lease to a congregation who needs a church to call home
  • Help arrange supplies in the new shelter

Please call 252.432.9494 to sign up to help.

Community Partners of Hope also needs the following items – free would be great, but at least for purchase at a reasonable price:

  • 8 single mattresses for bunk beds
  • Heavy duty washer/dryer – we will have 2 sets in the new shelter
  • Folding cots to use with air mattresses (need 12)
  • Air mattresses – easy inflatable – we have a pump (need 8)
  • TV monitor for security system – prefer 42-inch

If you or someone you know has experience with technology, the shelter needs help selecting, purchasing and installing the following:

  • WiFi router – mesh system – probably 3 nodes – need help with research
  • Electronic combination door locks – WiFi enabled (6 or 8) – need help researching best brand to purchase

And, as always, financial donations are much-needed and welcome. The 365 Dream Team campaign is one way to sustain the shelter ministry with $1/day contributions – the goal is to get 365 donors to become members of the 365 Dream Team. Learn more at www.cp-hope.org.

 

Community Partners of Hope

TownTalk: Men’s Shelter To Have Sign-Raising Event On Saturday

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Join Community Partners of Hope Saturday morning to be a part of a “Raise Our Sign” event at the future home of the emergency men’s shelter at the former City Road Methodist Church.

Delthine Watson said this is a way to celebrate the next steps for the new men’s shelter.

“We’re going to raise the sign because God has brought us to a building, and we are grateful and thankful,” Watson said on Thursday’s TownTalk. The event will begin at 10 a.m. at the site, located at 905 N. Garnett St., Henderson.

“We’ve worked through all of the steps and now we’re finally able to say ‘We’re here! We’re coming!’

The men’s shelter, currently operating out of the basement of the Presbyterian Church, opened on Oct. 1 to provide a place for unhoused men to seek refuge during the winter months, but Watson, CPOH’s community network specialist, said the goal is to have the new shelter open year ‘round.

“Regardless of whether you’re hot or cold,” (being homeless) is still the problem,” Watson said.

Individuals will be able to tour the building that will house the new shelter. With good luck, Watson said, work should begin in a few weeks to transform the fellowship building.

“We encourage you to join us …and to hear the changes that we want to make as we serve the community,” Watson said.

The current shelter can hold 12 men, and the new space will at least double that capacity.

“At some point, maybe we could serve families,” Watson mused. “The doors are wide open for what we can do…when your belief is strong and the community is supporting you.”

Call 919.339.1462 to learn more or visit www.cp-hope.org to learn how to donate.

The shelter currently needs donations of 30-gallon garbage bags, individual snacks for the men, and clothing such as pajama bottoms, thermal underwear, shower shoes and toiletry items.

 

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Community Partners of Hope

TownTalk: Community Partners Of Hope To Open Men’s Shelter October 1

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The men’s emergency shelter will open for the season in just over a month, but if Delthine Watson has anything to say about it, it will be the last time that the shelter will be open only in the fall and winter months.

“People need a place to go…away from the elements,” Watson told WIZS’s Bill Harris on Thursday’s TownTalk. The weather is something we have no control over, so whether the shelter can provide relief from the harsh winter cold or the relentless summer heat, that’s what she wants to do.

“(Homelessness) is not a seasonal problem,” she said, “we’re just a seasonal shelter – at this point. But we are working on that.”

Watson, community network specialist for Community Partners of Hope, said plans to upfit the former City Road Methodist Church to become the permanent 12-month location for the men’s shelter is taking shape.

Once all the paperwork is signed – and the money raised to make the necessary renovations to transform the church property – Watson said they’d be able to accommodate more men.

“At City Road, we might be able to prepare meals and give the men a place to not just sleep,” she said, but also a place to socialize with others and make connections with other people.

CPOH is working hard to raise the money to fulfill the vision that’s been in the making for the past 15 years – this is the 16th year of operation for the men’s shelter.

This is the only men’s shelter in the four-county area, but Watson said they get calls from Durham and Wake counties and even from Virginia.

It’s hard to say just how many homeless people are in Vance County and beyond, but Watson said this about the problem: “When we are open, we are almost filled to capacity.”

“We have a lot of displaced people who have nowhere to go,” she said.

She said the shelter is a “beacon of light” to people who have nothing. “If you come to the shelter, we give you clean clothes, and a meal and we give you hope.”

The shelter opens its doors at 5:30 each afternoon, but staff doesn’t always know how many men will enter. They try to have various sizes of clothing on hand and Watson said they have a special need for pajama bottoms and underwear.

They’ve got a lot of socks, but she said she would never turn away a donation from the community.

We are Community Partners of Hope, she said, emphasis on community.

There are opportunities for individuals and groups to support and contribute to the shelter, from signing up to provide a meal to making a monetary donation.

Visit www.cp-hope.org or follow them on Facebook to learn about all the ways to help

“Whatever it is you’re willing to do, we appreciate it,” Watson said. “We welcome whatever it is you want to do.”

Here’s how she looks at homelessness: “it’s not a goal you strive for, it’s something that happens to you. Showing a little kindness can go a long way.”

The shelter staff and the community that offers support lets the men know that they are loved and cared for, she said.

Watson can be reached at 252.767.0344.

Make checks payable to CP-OH Building Fund of CP-OH Operating Fund, P.O. Box 1791, Henderson, NC 27536.

 

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Community Partners of Hope

TownTalk: Community Partners Of Hope Helps Homeless Men

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Delthine Watson’s got the math memorized: 365 times 365 equals 133,225. But when you apply that simple calculation to the plan for the Community Partners of Hope men’s emergency shelter, the result can have life-altering consequences.

Watson, community network specialist for Community Partners of Hope, has complete faith that the community will help bring to fruition the dream to have the shelter open all year long. That plan is inching toward reality now – the shelter is opening a full month early this year, beginning Oct. 1. It previously had been open November through March.

“This year, with the support of the community, and listening to the community, we are opening up Oct. 1,” she told WIZS’s Bill Harris on Tuesday’s Town Talk. “We’re excited about that. But she is equally excited about the 365 Dream Team Campaign that calls for 365 entities -individuals, groups, clubs – to give $365 toward the goal of having the shelter and the services it offers open all year long.

Theirs is the only men’s shelter in the area, and Watson said they have clients who come from nearby counties, including Mecklenburg County, VA, for a warm, dry place to sleep. But the services end early in the morning and, as Watson points out, “during the daytime, they’re still homeless.”

The shelter is a place where men can get a hot meal, charge their phones, have a hot shower and a clean change of clothes, she said.

But once the shelter has its own space and can stay open all year, there could be opportunities for additional services and training to further help clients improve their life situations.

“Just imagine,” Watson said, “we could be able to operate all year, we could get a building…our dreams would come true.”

The $365 – she certainly welcomes more and understands if donors need to give less – would “help us do the things that we need to do – that we want to do.”

Bringing men from homelessness to some type of self-sufficiency is the goal, but Watson acknowledged that each client may have different needs.

Shelter Manager Darryl Jones helps clients a great deal, Watson said, and encourages the ones as they make life choices that take them from homelessness toward self-sufficiency.

Hearing updates from clients who have gotten their lives back on track definitely make for “feel-good moments,” Watson said. “But we don’t have enough of those.” Through additional programming, some life-skills programming and other services, she said the shelter could give the men what they need and what they are looking for.

Visit www.cp-hope.org or call 919.339.1426 to learn more about the 365 Dream Team Campaign.

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