Hey guys, I have a very important update on the Friendship Room’s needs.
In case you’re just joining me, the Friendship Room is a privately run hospitality house in downtown Steubenville. They offer anyone who needs help in downtown Steubenville a non-judgmental place to come inside for hospitality, no questions asked. They feed the hungry meals and give them groceries from their free pantry and books from their free library. They pass out seasonal clothing to the poor. They run a warming center during the winter and a cooling shelter during the hot summer months; they also put on Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween parties for everybody downtown. I have seen them work with homeless people to find housing quickly; they also befriend Steubenville’s prostitutes and sometimes help them escape their pimps and get into rehab. They visit the nursing home downtown and pass out gifts to children at Christmas. These are just some of the ways they help our local poor.
At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Under normal circumstances, all of those people would be packed like sardines into the Friendship Room to stay warm and alive in the freezing cold. I have visited there in winter and found it hard to even get in the door, it’s so crowded. Obviously, that kind of crowding would be extremely dangerous to attempt during the COVID-19 emergency, even if it weren’t illegal right now. And just in time for the late fall and winter, Jefferson County, Ohio, has been upgraded to a level three code red emergency.
The Friendship Room is going to try to keep all of those people from freezing this winter, without killing them in the process. That means they can’t let anyone in the house and they have to change their entire routine.
They have already paid someone to put plexiglass all over their front porch, to make a bit of a wind shelter for homeless people to sleep on while still technically being outside in fresh air for safety. I think they’re going to install some kind of heater out there. They’ve swapped out the outdoor sink which will freeze in cold weather with some kind of hand sanitizer pump station, which is better than nothing. And they’ve got other ideas as well.
This is where you, the reader, come in.
The first thing they’re going to need is cash. They have a lot of building projects to do to keep the porch safe for winter. You can mail a check to Friendship Room/Center of Hope, PO Box 53, Steubenville, OH, 43952. You can also donate money to their paypal at friendshiproomsteuben@gmail.com, or to their venmo at Friendship-Room. And they’ve got a donate button on their website.
The second thing they’re asking, is that you don’t drop off clothing right now. Normally there’s a clothing pile on one side of the porch where people can sort through and get what they want. But to encourage social distancing, that’s not active right now. When it turns cold out, they will be accepting donations of cold-weather items like coats and gloves. But it’s not cold this week, it’s actually unseasonably warm, and they have no place to store clothes they can’t give away immediately and they’re still trying to figure out what to do when the cold weather does come. So watch the Steubenville weather and don’t bring winter clothes until it’s actually cold.
They also need non-perishable food for their free pantry, cases of water, and fresh fruit. You can bring them there if you live locally, and you can also have them sent from afar via Instacart. The physical address is 419 Logan Street, Steubenville, OH, 43952. Remember that homeless people don’t often have the best teeth, so soft foods that aren’t sticky and that don’t have little shells in them are the most convenient. They go through tons of bananas and oranges.
They need gift cards brought or sent to them for local grocery stores, so poor people can buy their own Thanksgiving, since there can’t be an indoor Thanksgiving feast at the Friendship Room this year. Steubenville has a Kroger, a Wal Mart and an Aldi.
They need any hygiene items made for camping and other emergencies they can get– any products that are used for keeping clean when you don’t have access to an indoor bathroom.
They also need flashlights and batteries, sleeping bags and 2-person tents. I don’t camp so I don’t know what brands of sleeping bags and tents are best for winter; hopefully some of my readers know better than I do.
Finally, keep them in your prayers. This is shaping up to be a nightmare.
Thank you all very much for hearing Christ’s cry in the cry of the poor. I’ll keep you posted on their needs as the year progresses!
Image via Pixabay.
Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross.
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