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Newman Catholic Student Center campus minister Doris Nordin is pictured Wednesday afternoon sorting through supplies that have been donated to the new Matthew 25 homeless shelter in Charleston and are being temporarily stored in the center's lower level.
Newman Catholic Student Center campus minister Doris Nordin on Wednesday afternoon sorts through microwaves and other supplies that have been donated to the new Matthew 25 homeless shelter in Charleston and are being temporarily stored in the center's lower level.
CHARLESTON — After seeing the success of The Haven in Mattoon, religious and community leaders in Charleston wanted to replicate their services to give homeless people in the area a hand up in life.
Todd Foster, a former Charleston Fire Department firefighter and ambulance worker and current director of the Charleston Food Pantry, said after a life of involvement in social services the shelter was a logical next step. Recognizing that they cannot help everyone they want to help at this time, Foster said he hopes they are able to help as many people as possible with the assistance they offer.
“Not everybody can do something great, but everybody can do something small and in a great way or with great love. We can all help even if that's just giving somebody a smile or holding the door open for somebody, we can all be kind of nice to each other,” Foster said. “That's really what we're trying to do here is help our fellow people in their time of need and hopefully if we're ever in that situation where we need, someone will be there to help us, too.”
Matthew 25, named to reflect a chapter of the Bible that focuses on helping those in need, currently houses approximately half a dozen people in efficiency apartments. Once housed in Matthew 25, guests establish a plan for where they want to be in six months and are connected with a partner family who is meant to help them achieve that goal.
Foster said they are ready to help residents achieve any goals they may have during their time in Matthew 25.
“Some of that may include housing, some of that may include employment, some of that may include health care, or relationship reconciliation, for whatever put them in the homelessness situation to begin with. There's all variety of different things to work on, great deal of things, but it's just learning the resources that are already here that people don't know about,” Foster said. “So it's connecting the dots about what's already here and saying, ‘here's where you can get food, here's where you can get clothing, here's where you can get assistance for prescription medicine, here's where you can get health care’ and all of those things just come together as one big package. It's a support system that we're creating for them.”
Foster said it is important to keep in mind that homelessness is not just a person on the side of the road asking for money, it comes in many different forms.
“Homelessness just has so many different faces, poverty has a lot of different faces, and most of us are only a paycheck or two away from being there,” Foster said. “We really don't know what that looks like until we're in the middle of it."
The shelter’s location remains undisclosed as a precaution to ensure guest safety and to avoid having an overload of donations, but Foster encourages those who want to help or need help to call 217-790-5150 to learn more.
Aside from partner families, the shelter would benefit from more drivers to help guests get to places they need to be, skilled laborers who can help with renovations to the apartments and flipping the living spaces for the next guests, among other things.
Roy Lanham, director and campus minister for the Newman Catholic Student Center, helped make Matthew 25 a reality and said he is excited to see the next steps for the shelter. He said it’s creation is an example of what communities should be doing.
“I have often believed that we have a responsibility as a community to not just have a happy community, but also to recognize and realize who are those who are most marginalized in our community and how do we accompany them,” Lanham said. “That to me is a really key piece of living in a community and being part of a community.”
Lanham said he hopes that Matthew 25 will allow volunteers to connect with those in need in a deeper way.
“We're not there to fix anyone. We're not going to have a perfect record. You know, there's messiness with life, and so there's gonna be a messiness in our walk with folks too. It's never gonna be perfect, and that's OK,” Lanham said. He noted later that Matthew 25 volunteers have outfitted 10 rooms so far to receive guests.
Newman campus minister Doris Nordin said churches and individuals have donated bedding, clothes hangers, dishes, microwaves, soap, towels, toilet paper and other supplies to Matthew 25 , including detergent to use at on-site laundry facilities.
"It is overwhelming to see the generosity of people," Nordin said. She added that those who want to donate can call the Newman center at 217-348-0188 to see what is needed, adding that monetary donations for utilities and other expenses at the shelter are always welcome.
Rob Stroud contributed to this report.
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Newman Catholic Student Center campus minister Doris Nordin is pictured Wednesday afternoon sorting through supplies that have been donated to the new Matthew 25 homeless shelter in Charleston and are being temporarily stored in the center's lower level.
Newman Catholic Student Center campus minister Doris Nordin on Wednesday afternoon sorts through microwaves and other supplies that have been donated to the new Matthew 25 homeless shelter in Charleston and are being temporarily stored in the center's lower level.
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