During Health Emergency, Homeless Shelter Needs Donations
March 27, 2020 at 12:10 a.m.
During Health Emergency, Homeless Shelter Needs Donations
By Amanda [email protected]
Eric Lane and his wife founded Fellowship Missions, 1520 Winona Ave., Warsaw, 10 years ago April 1. The 46-bed homeless shelter serves men, women and children and provides three square meals and programming to help residents get on their feet.
“People can just walk in, but most everybody generally calls to see if we have availability,” Lane said, adding that they’re usually full year-round.
“The homeless population is high around Kosciusko County. It’s not just one thing that could create a situation where somebody would need to stay at a shelter,” he said. “It could be anywhere from a job loss, domestic violence, natural disaster, addiction or just getting out of jail or prison and needing an environment to call home for awhile. There’s just no cookie-cutter reason for it.”
He said a family of four was planning on coming Thursday night, which would put the shelter back at capacity.
The shelter is run completely on community support through foundation dollars, church donations and businesses who help.
“On a monthly basis, we could be upward of 100 different volunteers that come through the doors,” Lane said. “It’s about relationships with our residents. We believe that the faith pillar is the strongest one, but the social pillar is the next one, and if somebody doesn’t have a strong social pillar in their life, what’s it gonna be like? And we do that through relationship-building and our volunteers are key in that.”
Those important volunteers are now unable to give their time at the shelter because of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
“My staff and I determined that starting on March 12, Fellowship Missions residents would be put on a shelter-in-place order and would not be allowed to leave unless it was for essential appointment and work,” Lane said. “Indiana’s Gov. (Eric) Holcomb is implementing a statewide shelter-in-place order that started March 25. While the statewide order is until April 7, we at the shelter are maintaining our order for the residents until May 1.”
Lane said the shelter is still open to new residents, if they have room, and they will just go through a COVID-19 screening procedure before intake.
“Along with our shelter-in-place, we are continuing our volunteer suspension until May 1. While it breaks our hearts to not have our volunteers with us on site, we are asking people to say home for the protection of not only our residents and staff but also our volunteers,” he said.
Lane stressed that people can still sign up on the missions’ website, fellowshipmissions.net, to be a volunteer, they just won’t be able to start until the virus restrictions are lifted.
That’s not the only thing that’s hurting the way the shelter usually works – they need supplies and donations more than ever, including monetary donations.
“We’re in need, and we have a needs list on our website that will be updated every two to three days,” Lane said. “It’s crazy. Face masks and just all the wipes and all the cleaners that we’re now using per CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines, because that’s what we’re following. Our monetary needs is a big one. Our supplies have gone up, so that’s a big one, and we are buying food, so having food monetary donations is big. Also, just having people drop food off. That lifts people’s spirits, too, because they see that people are still supporting with those food and supplies.”
Lane said on Thursday, someone dropped off pizzas for lunch, and tonight for the shelter’s movie night, they’ll be having double cheeseburgers and fries. Anyone interested in donating meals can visit the website and sign up for a date to provide a meal. Meal donations can happen in three ways: The person can make the meal at their home and drop it off at the shelter; the person can bring the ingredients for the shelter to prepare the meal; or for those wanting to drop off take-out, Lane hopes during this time folks will support a local restaurant.
Lane is using his limited staff of three to help make the best of the stay-at-home order for the residents.
“People who shelter in place, it’s not just a family of four or six, it’s a family of 46, and so emotions can run high,” he said. “We’re trying to do as much as we can. We’re playing as many games as we can, doing movies, just trying to stay active in the building.”
Lane said he’s been working with the Bowen Center and residents who need therapy sessions have been doing online calls for that. He also said the shelter is looking for a ping pong table if anyone has one they’d be willing to donate.
“We’ve got a great, great community,” Lane said. “We’ll get through it. Everybody will get through it.”
To learn more about Fellowship Missions, visit their website or email [email protected].
Eric Lane and his wife founded Fellowship Missions, 1520 Winona Ave., Warsaw, 10 years ago April 1. The 46-bed homeless shelter serves men, women and children and provides three square meals and programming to help residents get on their feet.
“People can just walk in, but most everybody generally calls to see if we have availability,” Lane said, adding that they’re usually full year-round.
“The homeless population is high around Kosciusko County. It’s not just one thing that could create a situation where somebody would need to stay at a shelter,” he said. “It could be anywhere from a job loss, domestic violence, natural disaster, addiction or just getting out of jail or prison and needing an environment to call home for awhile. There’s just no cookie-cutter reason for it.”
He said a family of four was planning on coming Thursday night, which would put the shelter back at capacity.
The shelter is run completely on community support through foundation dollars, church donations and businesses who help.
“On a monthly basis, we could be upward of 100 different volunteers that come through the doors,” Lane said. “It’s about relationships with our residents. We believe that the faith pillar is the strongest one, but the social pillar is the next one, and if somebody doesn’t have a strong social pillar in their life, what’s it gonna be like? And we do that through relationship-building and our volunteers are key in that.”
Those important volunteers are now unable to give their time at the shelter because of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
“My staff and I determined that starting on March 12, Fellowship Missions residents would be put on a shelter-in-place order and would not be allowed to leave unless it was for essential appointment and work,” Lane said. “Indiana’s Gov. (Eric) Holcomb is implementing a statewide shelter-in-place order that started March 25. While the statewide order is until April 7, we at the shelter are maintaining our order for the residents until May 1.”
Lane said the shelter is still open to new residents, if they have room, and they will just go through a COVID-19 screening procedure before intake.
“Along with our shelter-in-place, we are continuing our volunteer suspension until May 1. While it breaks our hearts to not have our volunteers with us on site, we are asking people to say home for the protection of not only our residents and staff but also our volunteers,” he said.
Lane stressed that people can still sign up on the missions’ website, fellowshipmissions.net, to be a volunteer, they just won’t be able to start until the virus restrictions are lifted.
That’s not the only thing that’s hurting the way the shelter usually works – they need supplies and donations more than ever, including monetary donations.
“We’re in need, and we have a needs list on our website that will be updated every two to three days,” Lane said. “It’s crazy. Face masks and just all the wipes and all the cleaners that we’re now using per CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines, because that’s what we’re following. Our monetary needs is a big one. Our supplies have gone up, so that’s a big one, and we are buying food, so having food monetary donations is big. Also, just having people drop food off. That lifts people’s spirits, too, because they see that people are still supporting with those food and supplies.”
Lane said on Thursday, someone dropped off pizzas for lunch, and tonight for the shelter’s movie night, they’ll be having double cheeseburgers and fries. Anyone interested in donating meals can visit the website and sign up for a date to provide a meal. Meal donations can happen in three ways: The person can make the meal at their home and drop it off at the shelter; the person can bring the ingredients for the shelter to prepare the meal; or for those wanting to drop off take-out, Lane hopes during this time folks will support a local restaurant.
Lane is using his limited staff of three to help make the best of the stay-at-home order for the residents.
“People who shelter in place, it’s not just a family of four or six, it’s a family of 46, and so emotions can run high,” he said. “We’re trying to do as much as we can. We’re playing as many games as we can, doing movies, just trying to stay active in the building.”
Lane said he’s been working with the Bowen Center and residents who need therapy sessions have been doing online calls for that. He also said the shelter is looking for a ping pong table if anyone has one they’d be willing to donate.
“We’ve got a great, great community,” Lane said. “We’ll get through it. Everybody will get through it.”
To learn more about Fellowship Missions, visit their website or email [email protected].
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