Tag: outreach

This has been a brutally winter. The entire city has been working extremely hard to make sure no one dies from exposure this season. In addition to the hypothermia vans and shelters, this year the city started stationing warming buses throughout the city, where the homeless can board and warm up for 30 minutes, 3 hours, the entire night… however long they need. We have heard great feedback from our homeless guests and other providers about the success of these buses.

Still, there are people who are sleeping outside, whose mental illness prevents them from coming inside, or who think they are strong enough to brave the cold, wind, and snow. During the day, GMC staff and our medical team checks on these individuals. However, we can’t often do outreach at night, when people are most vulnerable.

And so, we decided to create a group of volunteers to do street outreach for us when it gets cold and when the weather’s supposed to be bad.

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Last Thursday, twelve University of Michigan students came to volunteer at GMC as part of their alternative spring break trip. We first led these students on a two-hour walk around Georgetown and Foggy Bottom to conduct street outreach and pass out toiletry kits. We saw a lot of people on the street who were very happy to receive a toothbrush, shampoo, hand sanitizer, and tissues.

Afterwards, the group came back to GMC where they split up. Half of the group hung out with our members and started a very intense Scrabble game that had members, students, and staff gathered around. The other half worked in our clothes closet and put together a clothing rack to hang out all of the coats we had received from Water Street Gym’s coat drive.

Thank you, University of Michigan students, for spending your spring break helping those less fortunate! We loved having you here and hope you come back next year.