Faith Works 1-3-25

Faith Works 1-3-25
Jeff Gill

Warming places in cold times
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Since January of 2019, an assortment of volunteers, churches, and organizations in Licking County have worked together to ensure we have some kind of "emergency warming center" for nights and sometimes through days when the winter temperatures are dangerously cold.

We've been in a half-dozen church locations; this winter we are at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on W. Main St., midway between the Courthouse and Licking Memorial Hospital.

Since that first ad-hoc winter, we've organized as the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center Task Force," with support from the Licking County Foundation for our nuts and bolts structure, and amazing help coming from both Licking Memorial Health Systems and the Licking County Transit folks. Notification goes out when we have an activation through the Licking County Health Department, and Pathways 211 has our information for those who call the crisis hotline along with the social media notices, and of course word of mouth.

When do we activate? This winter, like the last couple, the threshold is set at 10 degrees or lower overnight. We watch other weather conditions, and the leadership group has activated our service for guests under other circumstances, but that's the basic measure.

We've been asked "why not 32 degrees?" Sure, that would be better, but the truth is we started at 0 degrees, bumped it up higher, and found we were open more nights than we could reliably get volunteer staffing to cover. So right now, 10 degrees it is, with a stretch of cold weather likely in the near future.

In early December, we opened for two nights with an Alberta Clipper forecast. Volunteers came in from Hanover and Heath, Utica and Granville, and of course Newark; our guests included some who had been unsheltered for extended periods, but we continue to see increasing numbers of seniors and young families who are "caught outside" living in cars and such while working across a gap from one rental to another. They have a plan for next month or so, but are stuck without housing until that comes open, sleeping in cars or elsewhere until that lodging is available . . . and then the cold comes.

Your neighbors need help, and we're trying to extend that help. If you would like to be a volunteer with the Warming Center effort, the United Way of Licking County is helping us with volunteer coordination. You can go to their website, on the "Get Involved" tab: https://www.unitedwaylc.org/get-involved/

Scroll down to the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center" section, and you can click a "Sign Up" button to enter your contact information for the volunteer coordinators.

You can choose what works as to shifts: there's Intake from 4:30-8:30 pm which needs a couple of helpers; food preparation from 4:30-8:30 pm as well, which is mostly done for us, but we need help serving and cleaning up. There's the late shift to be present and offering assistance from 8:30 pm-12:30 am, and the overnight shift from 12:30-5:30 am, each needing four people to help our guests.
Then at 5:30 to 8:30 am our closer/cleanup crew arrives to help get breakfast served and direct guests onto transport when appropriate; a number of those staying with us each night have jobs to get to in the morning. When we wrap up from an activation, there's a stack of gear to launder and prepare for the next time we open up.

That totals up to fifteen or sixteen volunteers needed each night; if there's a three night activation it comes to about fifty total for us to operate to everyone's benefit. And signing up doesn't obligate you, it simply means you'll be contacted when conditions have us planning for a possible activation.

Please consider registering as a volunteer; there's a whole bunch of winter ahead as we begin 2025!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been a volunteer with the warming center effort and would love to see you come join us! Tell him what you like to volunteer with at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.