Housing and Homeless
Walk-In Ministry
The Walk-In Ministry, a part of the Downtown Community Ministry, provides lunch meals Monday through Friday at five downtown churches: Second Presbyterian Church, St. Paul’s Episcopal, Centenary United Methodist, St. Peter’s Catholic, and Third Street Bethel AME. For more than thirty years, Second Presbyterian has provided lunch each Monday. The meal is prepared and served by more than fifty members of our church. This hospitality mission includes other volunteer churches that alternate in sending teams to Second Presbyterian to prepare and serve the meal for our guests. In addition, some Presbyterian Women’s Groups, other churches, and corporations give financial help as well as food donations.
Monthly Update: July
Walk-In is continuing to run well although our guest numbers as well of those of the other downtown churches are down slightly. Good weather may mean more jobs for our guests, we hope. We served 634 meals in May and 241 for the first two weeks in June. We have had some new volunteers including several elementary age children from St. Andrews Orthodox on Memorial Day. The children really enjoyed making the bag lunches and handing them out. We also had some young children as guests recently including one little girl who was celebrating her fifth birthday. I would love to be able to give these children some fast food toys or other small gifts if anyone has some to spare. Please leave them at the volunteer/deacons desk in the lounge. Walk-in guests also appreciate coupons for discounts at restaurants as well as travel size toiletries, sunscreen, and cloth or plastic bags. Thank you for all you do to support the Walk-In program from gifts of money, food, supplies, and time and most especially for your prayers.
Monthly Update: June
Walk-In continues to go well. The Central Virginia Food Bank gave us a new refrigerator, which was installed in May. Thanks to Ele and Milt Bigger for spotting the grant potential and picking up the refrigerator! If you would like to know more about Walk-In ministry or to volunteer some time this summer, please contact Elva Mapp or Ginny Aronson.
Monthly Update: May
The Walk-In program has been busy as usual serving regular lunches every Monday. We had a few young children and young adult visitors, although most of our guests are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. They were grateful for the donated cloth bags and pads of paper, pencils and pens we gave out. Items like this, as well as small toiletries, are always appreciated so remember the Walk-In program as you do your spring cleaning. Our volunteer staff has ranged in age from 7 to 65 and up. Chester Presbyterian sent several members of their youth group for Easter Monday and the guests enjoyed hearing them sing the Johnny Appleseed blessing! The Feed More program of the Food Bank has awarded the program a new refrigerator/freezer. Thanks to Ele and Milt Bigger, our indispensable regular Food Bank buyers for mentioning this program and providing us with an application form.
Elder Homes
This is a non-profit agency in Richmond whose goal is to provide decent, safe, and affordable housing to low-income persons by rehabilitating existing homes, creating multi-family housing for the elderly, and providing home ownership opportunities for low-income buyers. Contact John Myers at 740 2049 for more information.
Homeward
Created in 1998 to reduce homelessness in Greater Richmond, Homeward’s goal is to initiate creative solutions and better coordinate regional resources and the service delivery system. As the coordinating organization, Homeward brings together homeless service providers; local governments; the faith, academic, and business communities; homeless and formerly homeless individuals; and concerned citizens to combine efforts, resources, knowledge, and talents in creating integrated and effective strategies and solutions to homelessness.