The involvement of our youth is a critical component to preventing and ending homelessness in our community. Housing for New Hope has recently benefited from the efforts of a number of area youth groups. We asked a representative from the youth group of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church to share her experience with Housing for New Hope.
Youth Make a Difference
By: Anastasia Carlson
On October 28, few people gathered in a multi-purpose room to have Sunday school. That days lesson: that one should balance between having pride and being humble. Later that day they truly learned what it meant.
Seven members of the youth, four leaders, and two seminarians got in their cars after eating lunch at the church and embarked on a journey I doubt any of them could forget.
I, myself, was fortunate enough to be one of those hopeful youth members thirsting for knowledge and ready for my latest adventure. Over the past year the Youth at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church has teamed up with Housing for to raise money. Yet, I believe they have done so much more then that. They met a man named Alphonso Williams who really touched their hearts. Mr. Williams was, like all other people that Housing for New Hope helps, homeless. And in today’s society one would think that the lowest position to be in. People take for granted how important it is to be able to walk through ones front door everyday and feel the cool breeze in the summer time and warmth it brings in the winter. To sit at the dining room table with family and, if nothing else, talk about the boring lives they each lived that day.
Last year at about this very same time Mr. Williams told his story to the Youth as they sat around a huge table eating soup and listening to every word he spoke. It seemed unimaginable that he was one of 500 people in Durham each night homeless. He did not look homeless to them. The Youth seemed to have a picture in their mind of what homeless was. They described homeless men and women as having bad cloths, bad breath, and all just a bunch of drunks. As they listened to Mr. Williams talk they learned that they were so much more. To hear that many used to be doctors, lawyers, and etc. it was hard to imagine how they could fall so far. However, it was more as a stair-falling effect. You go down step by step. Occasionally climbing back up, but eventually falling until you hit bottom.
After the Youth listened to everything they had to say they sat in silence until Father Kaynor, “Papa Bob” as the Youth refers to him, asked them a very simple question. “Would you be interested in helping out with Housing for New Hope?” It was apparent that the majority answer was yes. So they embarked on what would be an exciting journey.
At Christmas at their auction they raised 5,000 dollars, which was then matched by the church, and a grant for Housing for New Hope. When asked what it should go for there was once again no doubt that it would go to furnishing five apartments at the Ann Atwater House. On this fine day in October they set out to tour what they had helped create. Freezing outside they were quick to ask to get right on end and look around. The first room they came to was a meeting room. Yet, in all reality it was a living room. Where residents, community members, and all are welcome to meet, have some coffee, and discuss various issues. The Youth sat inside and was welcome by Eric Breit, the Development Director, and Michael, a ex-homless man now a resident to the Ann Atwater Apartments; both of which had some new and old information to once again distill into the minds of such thirsty teens. Williams took this opportunity to step right on in and make his grand appearance. Arriving fashionably late, from his beach trip where he was helping and talking to others, he sat down right next to me. While Williams is a tall man there is nothing else to really set him apart from anyone else in the community. However, I would not keep my mouth from dropping wide open and my eyes blinking a million time from not believing a first what I was seeing.
After Williams informed us as to why he was late and the fun he had had on his trip, he did not fail to mention the Jacuzzi, we continued our tour by walking back outside and around to the back door. Walking inside to be greeted by the first door on the right having been donated by St. Stephen’s youth in memory of Alphonso Williams.
The youth continued to look around the halls at the plaques until they reached Michael’s room. There Michael invited them in to see just how much they had helped. To them, this was not just a room, or a house. This was finally his home. If there were roughly 500 homeless in the past, this room meant one less. It meant 499; that being true, then the Ann Atwater House meant twenty less. The Youth helped furnish one-fourth of the apartments. They helped to provide a bed, a night stand, a dresser, a dinner table, even dishwasher soap.
It was not until they reached apartment number 18 that they stopped and really realized what they had done. What is so special about apartment number 18? Debbie and Matt Breuer had triplets, and due to illness all three have past. In memory of those three, Mason, Martin, and Micah, the Youth furnished a room in their honor. Everyone became teary and stopped to really think for a moment. They
did not just touch the lives of five lucky residents to an apartment in, it gave off a ripple effect to so many more. Other rooms were donated to; a close friend to many Youth who passed recently, Marianna Goodwin, a little girl who would used to laugh with them on Sunday mornings right before they went to church. A man who cooks them breakfast once a month Mr. Clyde Stephens, and another plaque in memory of past, present, and future youth leaders.
What did that days adventure really teach the 13 individuals standing outside in the cold? It meant exactly what Phillipians 2:1-3 Says “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Photographs By Katy Gilliam
|
