Boston Warm Day Center to transition October 5th
Dear Old South Church in Boston:
I am writing to update you with respect to exciting new developments with our Boston Warm Day Center. If you are acquainted with the history and story of BOSTON WARM, feel free to skip down to the final three paragraphs.
As many of you recall, on October 8, 2014 the bridge to Long Island was abruptly closed. Hundreds of persons living in Long Island’s shelters, recovery and treatment facilities were evacuated without explanation and literally deposited on the mainland with nowhere to go. In addition, many people’s few belongings (including medications, medical charts, cell phones, clothing, personal photographs) were left behind and unrecoverable.
Outraged by the miseries and indignities visited upon our most vulnerable neighbors, there arose a loose coalition of some 66 faith-based and treatment organizations. Initially called Religious Leaders for the Long Island Refugees. This group met weekly at Old South Church to learn the scale of the problems created by the loss of the facilities on Long Island and to press the City of Boston for both answers and action.
When it became clear that the City was lacking in motivation, organization and resources to address the crisis they had created – a crisis immeasurably exacerbated by one of the harshest Boston winters in living memory – Religious Leaders for the Long Island Refugees raced to open two temporary facilities to relieve some of the miseries and indignities. Under the name BOSTON WARM – an allusion, of course to BOSTON STRONG – we opened two day-time warming centers.
The Boston Warm Day Center at Old South Church operated five days a week, 9am to 3pm and offered sleeping cots, hot coffee and cocoa, bathrooms, sandwiches, micro-library, games, a visiting nurse, referral services and not least, 100 lockers where homeless folks could store personal belongings. The Boston Warm Day Center at Emmanuel Church operated two days a week, 8am to 1pm, and included hot lunches. Both Boston Warm Day Centers also provided to our guests warm winter clothing, personal hygiene kits and other sundries. Finally, both Boston Warm Day Centers offered something money can’t buy: companionship, kindness and lack of judgement. These two Day Centers were miraculously funded by an outpouring of care and goodwill following the outrage of the Long Island Bridge closure.
The idea was to operate the centers until the worst of last winter was past. The Boston Day Center at Emmanuel did its job beautifully and, due to pre-existing commitments to outside groups, closed some months ago. At the same time, the Boston Warm Day Center at Old South was reduced to two days a week. The loose coalition of some 66 faith-based and treatment organizations has more or less dissipated. It is time to transition.
And I have great news.
The Boston Warm Day Center currently operated at Old South Church will transition on Monday, October 5th to Emmanuel Church, around the corner from us at 15 Newbury Street. Management of the Day Center will be taken over by common cathedral , an outdoor church with whom Old South Church has had a long partnership. Not only does common cathedral run an outdoor church every Sunday on the Boston Common, it also runs common art (Wednesdays at Emmanuel Church), as well as street and pastoral ministries (with a chaplain assigned to Barbara McInnis House, a respite care facility for Boston’s homeless). Old South currently supports common cathedral at $20k per year, as well as providing in-kind services and volunteers for their programs. And, not least, Old South Church Senior Deacon, Debra Leonard, serves on their board of trustees, as did I for many years. The facility at Emmanuel Church includes handicap access, a kitchen, multiple bathrooms and in most every way far exceeds the cramped and frowzy quarters the Day Center currently occupies at Old South Church. Instead of closing the Boston Warm Day Center as originally anticipated, it will continue on, stronger than ever, in a better facility. It is hard to imagine a better outcome for the Boston Warm Day Center.
In addition to signing up to volunteer, there are two tangible ways you can continue to support this ministry:
1. Organize a few people into a sandwich team. The Day Center starts each morning with six loaves worth of sandwiches, so that guests have something to fill their stomachs when they arrive.
2. Become a BJ’s angel… willing to make a weekly BJ’s run for staples such as sugar, creamer, napkins, etc.
Sign up for either of these volunteer opportunities with Amanda, Executive Director of common cathedral, (amanda@commoncathedral.org).
THANKS BE TO GOD! Profound thanks are due to the Rev Laura Everett (Massachusetts Council of Churches) and the Rev Jim Stewart (Shelter Manager at First Church Cambridge) for tweeting and posting their righteous indignation at the sudden closure of Long Island Bridge and the creation of refugees in our midst. Their tweets and posts lit a fire under me and with the Rev June Cooper (City Mission Society) we called the first meeting. Thanks to City Mission Society to allocating huge amounts of staff time into facilitating our meetings, herding these religious cats and setting up a vehicle to receive donations. Thanks to Union United Methodist Church for lending us two young seminarians who created the Amazon Gift Registry which produced a tremendous amount of warm clothing and supplies for our guests. Thanks to our own John Edgerton for net-working with Long Island’s Victory Programs, hounding the City of Boston about the dire need for treatment beds and for traveling to and attending more meetings about this than all of the rest of us together. Thanks to Old South’s Ted Wade who researched and procured the very best locker storage system we could have imagined. Thanks to Rev Tina Rathbone of St. Paul’s Cathedral and Rev Brian Gearin of Starlight Ministries for coaching and mentoring us. Thanks to our own David Albaugh and Rebecca Bowler who completely shifted their lives to become managers of a make-shift Day Center and whose warmth, kindness, efficiency and personal sacrifices enabled our guests to truly feel safe and loved. Thanks to Rev. Kate Layzer, member of First Church Cambridge, who with grit and humor served as the face of hospitality for many of our unhoused neighbors. Thanks to a fabulous array of Old Southers who spent an entire day cleaning out the Club Room and adjacent rooms to make space for this Day Center. Thanks to Old South’s Accountant, Ro Clarke, who managed the Day Center payroll; the Old South Church sextons who were stuck cleaning far more than any of us had imagined; Helen McCrady who juggled the use of the Club Room with other users; Old South’s Youth Group which was displaced from the Club Room and moved into John Edgerton’s office. And, not least, thanks to over 200 Old Southers who volunteered their time, gave money, cooked food, provided material assistance, prayed prayers or otherwise supported this tender effort. Well done, good and faithful servants.
Rev. Nancy S. Taylor