LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake Ministerial Association is inviting the community to participate in an “Experience of Homelessness” event scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 22, at the association's community warming center.
The center is located at the Lakeport Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1111 Park Way.
Community members are invited to line up outside the center between 5:15 and 6 p.m. to take part in the experience.
The doors will open at 6 p.m. and guests will have the opportunity to simulate the entire process that the center's homeless guests traverse each weeknight – from completing the guest agreement, to intake, showers (procedure, not real showers this night due to time), smoking break, dinner, sleeping on cots (again, not actually sleeping but to be assigned a cot, lie down on assigned cot and feel what it is like), morning chores and checkout to the morning bus.
For practical purposes, the normal process will be condensed into a two-hour segment. However, the association plans to create an experience similar to that of someone who is on the streets and deprived of the basic services, such as a warm and dry safe space, a hot meal, a shower or a bed.
Dinner will be provided free of charge by the warming center.
No regular guests will be in attendance because the center is not open on Sunday nights.
The Lake Ministerial Association Warming Center is operated by volunteers and leaders from over a dozen churches and nonprofits around the county.
Participating churches and organizations include, but are not limited to, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Clearlake Community United Methodist Church, Upper Lake UMC, Middletown United Methodist Church, Kelseyville United Methodist Church, Galilee Lutheran Church, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Recovery Road Ministry in Lucerne, Lucerne Community Center, United Christian Parish, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others.
Park Place restaurant in Lakeport also has given supplies, as have second graders at Lakeport Elementary School, who have provided both meals and scarves for the center as part of the “Kindness Challenge for Kids.”
Personal items for center guests have been donated from Jesus Christ Fellowship in Middletown, St. Vincent DePaul volunteers and many others. Lake Transit provides bus passes.
The association said the warming center is truly a community project.
An RSVP is not required to participate in the “Experience of Homelessness” but would be appreciated to help them plan for an appropriate amount of food. RSVP to the warming center hotline at 707-349-4914. Calls are answered from 5:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. and messages during other hours will be returned as needed.
For more information about the warming center, the important outreach it continues in 2017, or for ways to volunteer or contribute, visit its Facebook page.
Lake Ministerial Association plans Jan. 22 'Experience of Homelessness' event
- Lake County News reports
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