Homeless services in need of donations
GEORGETOWN, Del. – Needs in the homeless community are growing and now there are more ways you can help.
As we begin to head out of the cold winter months, homeless services and drop-in shelters are still in need of donations for those in need.
“It’s a daily need always,” said Lou Hernandez, Higher Ground Outreach Director. “We’re a very busy place so we go through water very quickly, water is major thing that’s hard for us to keep in house. We were just down to about three cases of water this past weekend.”
Higher Ground Outreach has been in Georgetown for three years. It serves as a day center, seeing up to 60 people a day and serving around 160 meals.
In addition to water, the outreach needs other items to help serve its community.
“We need clothing,” said Hernandez. “We’re getting ready to transition to summer clothing now since we’re getting close to that time of the year, so we’re looking for lighter clothing, so if people have t-shirts and shorts and sneakers and things like that they would like to donate, we’d accept those.”
The outreach could also use an extra hand or monetary donations as well.
“They can help with the food preparation if that’s something they like to do, or someone is interested in donating funds to us to help us be able to purchase those things that we talked about, the IDs, those things cost money,” said Hernandez. “And of course, most of all, to keep the doors open. We don’t own this building so we pay rent, so we can use the help.”
Meanwhile, The Shepherd’s Office across town shares similar needs.
“Donations in the summer dry up and then in the middle of the winter people are cold and don’t want to go outside, so again the donations tend to be down a little bit,” said Greta Browning, The Shepherd’s Office Assistant Director.
The ministry serves a hot meal seven days a week, hosts movie nights and hands out clothing in addition to helping people with their spiritual needs.
The organization is in need of volunteers to bag snacks, prepare food and serve dinners to the area homeless.
“It’s difficult to get enough that we need because we serve about 250 meals a day, so if we got 500 granola bars that’s wonderful but that’s gone in two days,” said Browning.
For more information on how you can help these area organizations, you can visit Higher Ground Outreach’s Facebook page and The Shepherd’s Office website.
