The colors here are
monochrome studies in one shade of grey
The good times and the hard times, cut from the same grey cloth
And all the fires that crackle here consume but do not burn
All light and no heat, and I just wanna get warm
I just wanna get warm [i]
The good times and the hard times, cut from the same grey cloth
And all the fires that crackle here consume but do not burn
All light and no heat, and I just wanna get warm
I just wanna get warm [i]
January welcomes a New Year, and with it the annual
onslaught of guests who get way too cold for their own good.
It’s particularly harrowing for our Springs Rescue Mission neighbors who live in
the fog of addiction or mental illness as they work through the challenges of
being homeless in cold weather. Many of them don’t even notice there’s a
problem until hypothermia or frostbite (or both) have set in. That’s a problem
because when you add the confusion generated by hypothermia to the addled
mental state of those neighbors, it can be really difficult to remember your
need to get somewhere warm. Worse, by that time your body’s temperature
regulators may be going haywire so you may feel the need to take off the layers
of clothing that are saving your life at the moment.
It isn’t an everyday event, thankfully, but the homeless
community here in El Paso County loses people to the cold now and then. We
wonder to this day whether the cold caught one of our RAP friends by surprise
last month. We held his memorial service here not long before Christmas Day.
Hypothermia and frostbite are both subtle at first. Hypothermia
is a body temperature below 95° F. Depending upon your physical condition,
hypothermia can begin to kick in when the air temperature around you is as high
as 50° F. As one’s internal body temperature decreases, the very
real possibility of heart arrhythmia increases.[ii]
About 700 people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness are killed from hypothermia
every year in the United States.[iii]
Frostbite, clinically defined, is the temporary or permanent
skin tissue damage caused by prolonged skin-tissue temperature of 23°
F or below.[iv]
And the angels at Springs Rescue Mission’s Resource Advocate Program (RAP) are
knee-deep in frostbite intervention this week. If frostbite has turned to
gangrene, the intervention is not pleasant and quite costly to the community.
Bottom line is this: if we can help our neighbors who
nightly face the cold stay warm, despite the challenges they face, they’re more
likely to stay alive and well and make it to spring intact. Cold weather sleeping
bags (mummy-style if possible) and warm socks are simple things we can offer to
our neighbors on the streets during Colorado winters to make their lives a bit
more tolerable. They are time-tested and proven help for anyone with the need
to stay warm during long and frigid winter nights.
Will you join us in providing sleeping bags and socks to
help the homeless be warm until they can be helped or healed? Just bring them
by the Mission warehouse at 1 West Las Vegas St from 9:30 am – 4:00 pm Monday
through Friday, or Saturdays from 9 – 11:30 am. Your donation today could help
prevent frostbite or even worse for our neighbors.
They just want to get warm. Let's help them.
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