To all of our wonderful TIS supporters:
As we celebrate the end of October with Halloween, and as we usher in November with All Saints’ Day, we should remember that November is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Month (or HHAM, for short). Even though homelessness is a year-round challenge, as the weather cools, we find ourselves even more concerned about our neighbors who have no shelter; no place to call ‘home’.
I ask you to contemplate, for a moment, just how that would feel. No comfortable place to rest at the end of a long workday, with all your comforting belongings around you… No safe place for your children to lay their heads and sleep without worry… No dinner table around which to break bread with your family… Possibly even no food to eat some days. Even fresh water to drink or to bathe is a challenge.
At TIS, we provide a beautiful, comfortable home for families and individuals to enjoy while they are working on saving money, learning life skills, and turning their lives around. But we do not have the capacity to serve all of our neighbors in need, and we need your help. As HHAM unfolds, TIS staff will be placing collection boxes at businesses you frequent so we can collect food, household items that cannot be purchased with ‘food stamps’, and even money so that we can support the 40 people we currently have in our care, and also those who will not come into shelter, but who do come to our door for outreach assistance. I ask you to keep an eye out for these boxes, and to be generous with your giving, but even more importantly, to share with people you know who may not know the depth of the problem in our community. It seems unbelievable to me, but there are folks in our community who do not know that there are people experiencing homelessness in our neighborhoods, and who also do not know about Talbot Interfaith Shelter. When the opportunity arises, please help us spread awareness of the issue and our TIS solution, not only during Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Month, but year-round. Homelessness isn’t a weather problem, it’s a housing problem.
One more request: Please keep your eyes open for the events TIS is sponsoring this month—all included in this newsletter. Please support our wonderful and generous community partners The Ivy and Doc’s Downtown Grille and Legal Assets on their respective Dine to Donate Days. And you won’t want to miss the culmination of the month: TIS’s Big Hair Big Hearts 80’s Night Fundraiser at the Elks Lodge on November 23rd. I am so psyched to gear up for the Crazy Eighties!
We are so very grateful for your support, and we know that we ask a lot of you. We hope that you will accept the challenge of spreading the word, and of bringing more supporters into the Team TIS family.
I wish you a beautifully blessed Thanksgiving to be shared with your friends and family.
– Julie Lowe
