I Just Wanna Get Warm

 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]

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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[i] Mark Heard, “I Just Wanna Get Warm,” © 1991 Ideola Music/ASCAP.

[ii] http://www.thesurvivaldoctor.com/2012/01/03/symptoms-of-low-body-temperature/

[iii] http://sleepingbagsforthehomeless.com/

[iv] http://www.healthscout.com/ency/1/453/main.html

Socks, Part Two: Preventing Frostbite and Its Fallout

My good friend Sarah Stacy, who manages the Mission’s Resource Advocate Program (RAP) for the chronically homeless, is genuinely excited about the possibilities of more socks for the neighbors we serve. She states her case far better than I could ever hope to rewrite it:

“The homeless are at great risk of frostbite on their feet for a number of reasons, one of which is damp socks or dirty socks that lose their ‘fluff’ (those air pockets between the fibers that help our feet stay warm) and ability to protect the skin. 

“Frostbite can take up to two years of extensive medical treatment to get taken care of, including inpatient care, managed pain control (which is risky for those with addictive personalities) and visits to wound clinics several times a week during the healing process.  It’s ugly as the tissue that was frozen falls off.  Medical personnel usually have to wait until the toes ‘self-amputate’ to preserve as much of the foot as possible in the healing process. 

“Treatment is painful and VERY EXPENSIVE to the community. Yet adequate footwear, including socks, could prevent the problem. 

“One of the yuckiest parts of caring for the homeless is asking to see their feet in the cold to help prevent these problems.  We have to educate, educate, educate our homeless to take care of their feet, and providing clean warm socks is a major way to help.”

So one more time for those of you in the Pikes Peak Region: You can find sock drop boxes around town in Colorado Springs. There are boxes located at TCF Bank (Powers & Constitution), Remington College, Nazarene Bible College, Gold’s Gym Briargate, The Coffee Exchange, Hollywood Theater (where Timothy Green will debut on August 15) & Community Bible Study.

Your gift of just one pair of socks could save someone a lot of pain, and the community thousands of dollars. (Imagine what a package of six pairs might do…)

Thinking about Socks

 

 

Can you imagine life without socks?

I never thought socks (or the lack thereof) were a big deal until JT. JT was one of the best guys you could have on your pickup basketball team, period. Poetry in motion. Guaranteed points if you fed him the ball anywhere within ten feet of the hoop.

I remember the day someone landed on JT’s left foot as he and JT were coming down struggling over a rebound. JT was convinced he’d broken a toe. I helped unlace and gently took off JT’s left shoe -- a battered old Puma, as I recall -- and was totally unprepared for the stench that was suddenly unleashed, the sweat inside that shoe and how chewed up JT’s feet looked. (And to top it all off, his toe was indeed broken.) You see, JT didn’t wear socks. It took me a few years, long after I was in another city, to realize JT couldn’t afford socks.

JT was clearly embarrassed to have his bare foot showing in front of his basketball buddies, but the pain of his injury forced the issue.  I don’t think that socks would have prevented a broken toe for JT that day. But I do know now as a parent and as someone who hopes to help neighbors without proper footwear that socks can make a big difference in one’s health and confidence. Think about it for a few moments. Socks  

• Protect feet from dust and moisture, keeping them clean.
• Keep feet 50% warmer by just wearing them in winter.
• Help prevent shoes from stinking up and rotting.
• Keep feet warm.
• Absorb sweat from the feet.
• Prevent fungi from growing on your feet.
• Help keep the feet soft, preventing cracking.
• Prevent foot odor.
• Prevent foot perspiration from spreading on the floor.
• Ease chafing between the foot and footwear.
• Give you comfort and confidence.[i]

We notice a lot of the children and adults we serve at Springs Rescue Mission are short on socks. Thus this shameless plug for new socks for our neighbors in need. Any kind, any size is just fine although the greatest need is likely for socks suitable for wearing with tennis shoes or work boots.

And for the next few weeks, a national sock drive for the homeless is being promoted jointly by the Association of Gospel Rescue Mission, Hanes and Disney to benefit rescue missions throughout North America. It’s in conjunction with the new Disney movie The Odd Life of Timothy Green.  

Without giving away too much, Timothy Green has a profound need of socks for his own reasons in the movie. (His situation is much like JT’s, only more whimsical.) I have been privileged to see two screenings of the film. It’s a good- humored, tender movie about two subjects near to my heart: parenting and adoption. I think it might be a bit too slow for preschoolers, but I would encourage children of all ages and the people who love them to see the film and then talk about it. You won’t regret it.

Back to the socks: You can find sock drop boxes around town in Colorado Springs. There are boxes located at TCF Bank (Powers & Constitution), Remington College, Nazarene Bible College, Gold’s Gym Briargate, The Coffee Exchange, Hollywood Theater (where Timothy Green will debut on August 15) & Community Bible Study.

Maybe you could pick up an extra pack of socks when you shop for school clothes for your kids or grandkids.  It’s a simple gift that can yield a lot of practical benefits, especially as we move from summer into fall.

And please, go see Timothy Green!

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[i] Revised from http://www.recipeapart.com/benefits-of-wearing-socks/#ixzz22n88cBbo. A friendly, not-too-technical article if you’re interested.