Yesterday, St. Paul's hosted over 270 lunch guests and more than 30 volunteers as part of Homeward's 13th Winter Point-in-Time Count. The Point-in-Time Count, conducted by Greater Richmond region’s planning and coordinating agency for homeless services, is a twice yearly survey of the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single day.
As the central event site, service providers from around the region were also at St. Paul's offering free flu shots, blood pressure screenings, confidential HIV screenings, and hair cuts, as well as information about veterans services, offender aid and restoration, supportive housing, and more.
"Do you get treatment for mental illness? Do you have a problem with alcohol? Do you have a physical disability? Do you have debts? Were you homeless as a child? Knowing more about the approximately 1,000 homeless people in the Richmond region helps the agency and others who serve the homeless do their jobs more effectively, said Homeward Executive Director Kelly King Horne."
As Wallace+ often remarks, St. Paul's partnership with Homeward to help address, reduce, and end homelessness is central to our mission of proclaiming Christ in the heart of the city.
Just before Christmas, on December 21, Homeward organized a Memorial Vigil at St. Paul's to remember those who died without homes in Richmond in 2010. The service was one of hundreds that took place nationwide as part of National Homeless Persons Memorial Day. Wallace+ offered an opening homily, followed by a reading of the names of the deceased with The Rev. Tyrone Nelson, pastor of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, Richmond's cold weather emergency overflow shelter.
In her closing remarks, Kelly King Horne, Homeward's Executive Director, urged those present to recommit themselves to helping prevent and end homelessness in 2011. With the New Year comes a new opportunity to get involved. Homeward is currently recruiting volunteers for the 13th Winter Point-in-Time Count at St. Paul's later this month on Thursday, January 27 (9 am - 1:30 pm).
Click on "read more" to jump to additional information about the vigil and this volunteer opportunity.
Photos courtesy of Mark Gormus, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Thank you to all those who attended this afternoon's Homeless Persons Memorial Vigil in the St. Paul's Memorial Garden, sponsored by Homeward. It was a poignant service as Wallace+ and the Rev. Tyrone Nelson of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church read the names of 17 individuals who died without homes in Richmond this year. The church bells tolled and candles were lit in honor of each life.
In his homily, Wallace+ described the importance of remembering each life:
We remember those who have died, and we hope that by remembering them, that we would also raise awareness—raise consciousness—in our community; that hearts might be moved, and that minds might be opened, so that metropolitan Richmond would become more the compassionate community that God yearns for us to be.
Words from the priest and poet John Donne speak to us now, reminding us of the unalterable bonds that all human beings share. With some gentle editing, Donne’s short mediation, “No man is an island”:
No man, or woman, or child, is an island entire to itself; every woman, every man, and every child is a piece of the continent, a part of the mainland; if a clod be washed away by the sea, America is the less, Richmond is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if any of one’s friends or one’s own family were; any man, woman, or child’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in humanity.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
I hope you saw Kelly King Horne's column in this week's RTD, where she talks about the mission of Homeward, the organization she heads. As I say above, St. Paul's is honored to partner with Homeward; indeed, as I have said to Kelly, our partnership with Homeward is one we at St. Paul's hold especially dear.
The Project Homeless Connect, which took place yesterday, is just one example of the vital work that Homeward does, year in year out, day in day out. Thanks to the many St. Paul's parishioners who volunteered this year and to our Social Worker, Jenny Bliley, who helped coordinate volunteers for the day and who has coordinated haircuts for Project Homeless Connect in the past.
I encourage anyone reading this post to consider your part in ending homelessness in Richmond. It begins with prayer. And, as we often say, let us pray for the grace and strength and wisdom to work for those very same things for which we pray.
God bless, Kelly, and God bless Homeward.
St. Paul's & Homeward
Below is a video by Jaclyn O'Laughlin for her Richmond Economy Project that was posted earlier this year, highlighting our partnership with Homeward.
And, of course, this Christmas, tonight, and tomorrow, new memories are being made; a Carol sung, pure and exquisite; an old friend; warm, endearing words exchanged; a first Christmas for a new grandbaby; a candle lit, a face aglow, eyes agleam.
More than fifty times, in his published writings, Barth refers to the Grunewald image; and, indeed, usually, it is precisely in reference to John, and John’s relation to the figure of Christ; as he points.
Barth (and Grunewald before him) understood John’s sole purpose to be to serve as a pointer to Christ, a reference to Christ, a witness to Christ.
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As Wallace+ often remarks, St. Paul's partnership with Homeward to help address, reduce, and end homelessness is central to our mission of proclaiming Christ in the heart of the city.
Thank you to all those who attended this afternoon's Homeless Persons Memorial Vigil in the St. Paul's Memorial Garden, sponsored by 