Park Community Shelter. It was a fascinating experience and I could go on about it for hours.
The dinner prepared by volunteers smelled great. Chili for dinner, with apple crisp for
dessert. The first game of football season was on that night. Watching a great game between the
Steelers and the Titans with about a dozen of the guests was like watching it with anyone
else. We even stayed up a bit past "lights out" in order to see the end of the game. They
thanked me for letting them stay up to watch it, but I told them that it was more fun to
watch a game with company than by myself. It was a good time.
One guest asked if he could stay up a bit later to take his new clothes out of their packaging (removing tags, paper wrapping, etc) because he would need them in the morning. He had purchased the clothes with his first social security check. He had a bunch of stuff; it took him about an hour.
The shelter typically runs at full capacity (35 beds)and currently has 24 male and 11 female
"guests." It is a very clean and professionally run facility. I'm pretty sure that if any of us would meet the guests on the street that we would not be able to identify most of them as homeless. If you want to learn more about LPCS or get on the email list, visit http://www.lpcsonline.org/. It's a great organization.
--Gil Matar, LPCS Board Member
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