Showers and Laundry at SsAM for the Un-Housed began the Week of June 24, 2024.
How is the Holy Spirit calling us? Showers and laundry services are now offered to Friendship House clients at the Empowerment Center at the Orange Street entrance to our church building. Friendship House needs volunteer help! To start, showers will be offered three days a week with a volunteer needed from 2:45pm to 5:15pm. Laundry will be offered two days a week with a volunteer needed from 9am to Noon. If you think you might be one of those volunteers, please click here to use the Contact Us form on this website.
ITEMS NEEDED: laundry detergent, laundry bags, laundry sheets, commercial Oxi-Clean; wash cloths, bath towels.
Summary of the May 19, 2024 Listening Sessions.
Our church’s long relationship with Friendship House is changing once again. On Sunday, May 19, 2024, we gathered in the auditorium to hear from and ask questions of Kim Eppehiemer, Executive Director; Rashita Lewis, Empowerment Centers Director, and Bill Perkins, former Executive Director. This is one step in our discernment of God’s call to us to love our neighbors in downtown Wilmington, Delaware, in mutual respect and appreciation.
When my wife and I first joined SsAM in 2005, we were impressed that Friendship House provided 16 beds for homeless men in our basement and a community breakfast for 100 or more every Sunday morning. When COVID-19 hit, those ministries ended, although coffee and bagels were still handed out and port-a-potties were set up in the parking lot. Now, our lowest level fronting Orange Street is used as an empowerment center, with no overnight accommodations. Click here to learn more about Friendship House’s five empowerment centers. Further changes are expected at Friendship House and our church’s relationship to Friendship House, but what should they be? How is the Holy Spirit calling us?
Bill Perkins noted that Friendship House clients can be in survival mode, not yet ready for recovery. They cannot begin to think of longer-term solutions to their problems when day-to-day emergencies dominate their lives. Friendship House tries to address both, with a clothing bank, financial assistance, seasonal programs, and transitional housing.
Friendship House needs a budget of $3,000,000/year but gets by with $2.2/million. It has to work within the limitations and restrictions mandated by local zoning laws, funding restrictions, and the rules under which the Housing and Urban Development agency operates. And then there are the political limitations imposed by NIMBY, people not wanting Friendship House’s services in their back yard.
One comment by a client who attended the listening sessions stood out for me. He said that what was needed was classes or tutoring on how to speak; that the homeless often do not know how to talk to program administrators and homeless advocates, do not know the lingo of financial assistance and vocational training.
What impressed you?
If something impressed you at the listening sessions, please click here to send me an email. How do you think God is calling us to love our neighbors in downtown Wilmington?
—Danny Schweers, May 29, 2024.
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An exhortation by Father Patrick (early May, 2024).
Dear beloved friends in Christ,
Over the past few months we have observed a rise in the number of those who are unhoused, and those who are struggling financially, here in Wilmington, across the state, and nationally.
For decades the members of SsAM, and previously the members of St. Andrew’s and St. Matthew’s, have cared for these most vulnerable members of our community with compassion and faithfulness that is both awe inspiring and beautiful.
It is upon that bedrock of faithful ministry that I am calling us into a community-wide discernment process to explore how the Holy Spirit is calling us to respond to the needs of our neighbors in this moment.
On May 19, the Feast of Pentecost where we celebrate the gift of the power of the Holy Spirit that transformed Jesus’ first followers, we will host two community-wide listening sessions in the Auditorium at 9:15am and 12:30pm.
We will have multiple ministry partners present to help us understand what is happening locally along with space for questions and feedback, so that we, as a community, may discern a faithful response. For those who are unable to attend, the sessions will be recorded and available for viewing via a private YouTube link.
The systemic pressures and context today are different than those that we have navigated in the past. Even so, our call to faithfully respond resonates now as strongly as ever. We are disciples of our crucified Lord. We remember how he broke bread with outcasts and shared good news with the poor.
Please join me in praying together that the Holy Spirit may descend upon us with wisdom and power during this discernment period.
Thank you for your faithful witness. It is truly an honor and a privilege to be in ministry with you at this important moment.
Yours in Christ,
Patrick+
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