The rumble and crack of a coffee cup could be heard as Michelle Augustine was busy in the kitchen of the San Gabriel Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Georgetown on a recent Wednesday night.
“Coffee is a food,” he said. “It’s food for all of us.”
Augustine and a team of about half a dozen volunteers spent the last week transforming the church’s sanctuary into an emergency on a warm night.
That’s because it’s not like neighboring Travis County, Williamson County there are no government-run overnight shelters for homeless people – including the cold outside. That really bothered Augustine, who used to volunteer at Austin shelters. So, he and a group of other like-minded people of Georgetown decided to take the job upon themselves and do their own work.
“I said to my wife, you know, can we ask our church? So I asked, I called the president of our board on Friday morning, and within two hours, I got the answer that we can use the place,” he said.
According to him, people from other nearby churches and non-profit organizations also quickly joined.
“You have food volunteers. Some people come to help clean up,” Augustine said. “And some people just come to visit, which is great.”
One of those volunteers tonight is Nathaniel Bonner, mobile coordinator for Helping Hands of Georgetown.
“It’s more than just a safe place,” he said of the church’s shelter. “The warmth, the hope, the kindness.”
Bonner said he has been working with Georgetown’s homeless population for more than six years now.
Almost every day of the week, she goes out to the library and hands out bags of food, shopping bags, clothes and toiletries.
“A lot of people see it as a handout.
About 20 miles southeast of Georgetown, in Taylor, another group of non-profits and church volunteers are working to help the homeless population in the area apart from the cold night.
Rick Von Pfeil sits on the board of the Taylor Center for Advocacy and Advocacy. He said his organization is working with local hotels to help achieve this.
“If they’re not in their house and it’s going to be below freezing, as long as they reach out and contact us, we’ll do it.” We do our best to accommodate them and find them a room,” he said.
So far, Von Pfeil said, his organization has helped put 22 people, including some children, in hotel rooms. But, he said, they need help to continue doing this.
But both Von Pfeil and Augustine agreed: These kinds of activities are only supported by the public.
“There are a lot of people who want to help. The donation side is a really neat way to allow us to get motel rooms or get food,” he said. said Von Pfeil. “Then I think after this winter, we will go back to some of the people who expressed interest in being part of the organization, and we will talk to them about joining. to us for the next winter round.”
He said people who want to donate money can do so through PayPal or Venmo.
Augustine said he also wants to see local officials have more discussions about ways to help the homeless population.
“My challenge to our city and county is: What are we going to do long term?” he said. “Williamson County is the fastest growing county – or one of the [the fastest growing counties] in the country. We have to prepare.”
But now, he said, donations also help.
He said people can donate money to the San Gabriel Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Georgetown. Just be sure to specify that it is a “soft creation.”
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