365/7

Is there life at the Mission after the holiday season? Yep.

Will the hustle and bustle and open hearts of Thanksgiving and Christmas keep our homeless and at-risk neighbors in Colorado Springs secure until late next October? Nope.

Life goes on for the Mission and the homeless we serve after the holiday season. The needs we address during the holiday season don’t let up once the calendar changes into the New Year.

Here’s the drill: After an at-risk family leaves with a holiday food box in December, the food generally lasts them into early January. Then they may need more food to supplement their food stamps, or to give them some breathing room that allows them not to choose between having food and, say, keeping their lights and heat on.

Or, for just a minute now, imagine you’re homeless and on the streets. You get a great Christmas meal at the City Auditorium from the Mission. If you know how to make the rounds you’ll get a few really filling holiday meals a week either side of Christmas. Then you return to your life of meals at various agencies around town; good stuff when you get to them, but you just don’t always get to them on time.

And when the weather turns foul, sometimes you choose between exposing yourself to the elements for a long walk to a hot meal and staying in the trench you dug under the bridge with several others to share and preserve body heat. Sometimes food shows up when you need it and sometimes it doesn’t.

In the middle of this crucible of need are agencies like Springs Rescue Mission. Day in and day out, beyond the events that draw media attention, homeless and at-risk people can come to the Mission for clothing, referrals for medical attention, hot meals and a message of hope (six days a week) at Samaritan’s Kitchen, food boxes, and even household and hygiene items.

The Mission served roughly 4,000 meals to about 2,300 guests between its Thanksgiving and Christmas events at the Colorado Springs City Auditorium. That covers two days of food service, one day per event. The other 363 days of the year the Mission provided a combined 196,000+ meals to our neighbors in need between hot meals through Samaritan’s Kitchen, box and sack lunches, and contents in food boxes. We also served an additional 35,700 people the other 363 days of the year. [i]

The point here is that the need for thousands of at-risk and homeless people in El Paso County doesn’t disappear for ten months even after a very busy and fruitful two months. Events are certainly wonderful, and in many ways necessary, times of celebration and introduction of neighbors in need to the services available at the Mission and other agencies. But the challenge to respond to our neighbors in need goes on 365 days a year, 7 days a week. The stories of people like you helping others can be just as dramatic in February or July as in the second week of December. A food drive in March can be just as important (believe it or not) as one in November.

You get the idea. Clearly, we are grateful for all that happened to benefit homeless and at-risk children, women and men this holiday season. But just as clearly, fighting homelessness and poverty is a 365/7 task.

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[i] To check on these and other SRM program service statistics for FY 2011, start on Page 2 of SRM’s latest Form 990 at http://www.mysrm.org/images/stories/PDF/990_for_FY_10-11_-_SRM_FY10_990_Public_Inspection_Copy.pdf.