The weather has been exceptionally cold this week, with lows in the teens in some areas of Sonoma County. A lot of homeless youth living on the streets are wary of staying in shelters, but with the extreme temperatures we’ve seen lately, sleeping bags aren’t enough. A warm bed, a shower, and a safe place to stay are absolute necessities when it’s freezing outside. This weekend at our Teen Shelter, we had 3 homeless youth come in from the cold. One of the youth said that when he’s outside, he sleeps in bushes, or tries to find empty houses or garages. He said he wanted to come to the teen shelter because he knew it would be warm, and he knew that sleeping under a bush wouldn’t be safe. Once he found the Dr. Coffee Teen Shelter, he brought two homeless friends to come stay with us as well.
Nicole Garces, a counselor at the Dr. Coffee House was relieved to know that the teens were safe, “it was so cold just walking from the shelter to my car, it made me so grateful to know that the teens who came to us were safe and warm.”
In addition keeping teens safe, we’re serving hot, homemade meals at the Dr. Coffee Teen Shelter. In the past 6 months we served over 750 meals to drop in street youth. Our food program, coordinated by AmeriCorps member Julie Long is gearing up to serve healthy, delicious meals to even more youth in the coming months. We’ll be working with volunteers to cook meals for teens at the shelter, if you’re interested in getting involved, please get in touch! Julie’s phone number is (707) 544-3299 x215 or email jlong@saysc.org.
