By Joan Marshall

Planning for this year’s Cold Weather Shelter proved to be a challenge for Grassroots. Given ongoing community concerns about the risk of a COVID outbreak, many local congregations were hesitant to offer to host guests in their building. At the same time, funding for hotel rooms was uncertain at best.

By mid-October, however, funding from Howard County government became available so shelter guests could be housed at a local hotel – as they had been for the past 2 years.

While Glen Mar had planned to host guests towards the end of the shelter’s season in March 2023, suddenly, we were asked to become one of the earlier churches to host the shelter in December 2022. Fortunately, Glen Mar was ready and willing to respond. We were initially concerned about recruiting enough volunteers during this busiest of seasons; however, the Holy Spirit was at work and all volunteer positions were filled. The shelter filled to the brim, requiring us to increase our quantities of meals to almost double the number we had originally planned for – and yet all of our volunteers responded positively and more than met the needs of our guests!

From December 12 – 19th, we provided three individually packaged meals daily to approximately 45 guests, about half of whom were children. More than 65 volunteers bought bulk items for breakfasts and lunches, provided funds for laundry, made sandwiches and dinners, packaged individual meals, delivered them to the hotel and then served them to guests’ rooms.

It was a joyful experience for our planning team to see – yet again – the kindness, caring, and generosity of “Glen Martians” to help and bless our neighbors in need.