Party time tonight at the
Sacred Heart to celebrate the end of Brighton & Hove Churches Winter Night
Shelter, which ran from 1st December 2012 to the beginning of March
2013. Nine churches provided dinner, overnight accommodation and breakfast for
15 homeless men each night for the three months of the shelter.
Each church was responsible
for one night’s activity. This involved shopping for supplies, arranging the dining
and sleeping accommodation, assembling
15 beds, registration of the guests from 8.00-8.30pm, preparing and serving
dinner, providing entertainment, overseeing sleeping arrangements with volunteers
on duty all night, cooking and serving breakfast, departure of the guests by
8.00am, cleaning the venue and moving the beds and bedding on to the next
church.
A total of 54 volunteers
worked on the Night Shelter at Sacred Heart Church under Fr. Kevin Dring,
formed into three shifts; Evening (7.00-10.45pm), Overnight (10.30pm-6.30am)
and Morning (6.15-9.00am). Each shift had a designated Leader, a First Aider and
a Fire Warden, with a Food Manger for the Evening and Morning shifts.
In total, 42 homeless men used
the Shelter during the 14 weeks it was in operation. An important aspect of the
Shelter was the effort made to help the men improve their lives (rather than merely
to provide them with accommodation and food). Each guest was offered assistance
with finding housing, getting work or identifying a course to improve their
skills and, in total, 17 of the 42 men were found housing, with several more starting
jobs or courses.
For the churches, the
experience was enormously beneficial. It was the ability to carry out the
Gospel command to feed the hungry and to shelter the homeless. It was the
creation of caring communities that came together to be the Church in action. It
was discovering the joy to be found in serving others. Approximately two-thirds
of the volunteers at Sacred Heart were female and the ages of the volunteers ranged
from university students in their late teens to pensioners, many of whom were
over 70. There was a tremendous esprit de
corps, with volunteers turning up early for their shifts just so they could
spend more time with the guests and each other. Some comments from my file: ‘I
was left with a nice warm fluffy feeling’ ‘I really enjoyed helping’ ‘it was a
great experience’ ‘rewarding and pleasurable’ ‘I really loved being a
volunteer.’
So, we had a party. And we agreed
that we would be volunteering again this winter. 
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