A brief history of its beginnings
FEEDING & SHELTERING HOMELESS PEOPLE AT GOOD SHEPHERD
In the early 1970’s returning veterans from Vietnam and the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric and mental health institutions created a large number of homeless people in major cities throughout the nation. By the middle of the decade, our Diocese Christian Social Ministries Commission under the leadership Rev. Lex Mathews took the lead in creating shelters and soup kitchens within Episcopal congregations in large cities throughout the state. It was a major social, economic, moral and security issue for our society and particularly for many of us in Rocky Mount and church. When the Good Shepherd Christian Social Committee began to talk about our roll in addressing this issue, the knee-jerk comment was that helping these people would just bring more freeloaders from New York and New Jersey because of our easy access via the Railroad and I-95. But we were a downtown church and the evidence of need was apparent every day in Rocky Mount.
The Vestry did decided in principle to open a Soup Kitchen but wanted to promote discussions within the congregation. To facilitate this process we asked Lex to give a presentation to the congregation on the homeless situation and how churches can help on the local level. After a successful congregation meeting and subsequent smaller meetings, we decided to open a soup kitchen in the church basement. After many volunteer hours cleaning and painting the basement (that had been used for over 30 years by a Boy Scout troop but recently abandoned) was transformed a month later to a soup kitchen.
With the women of the church we began providing soup and sandwiches. Other churches in large urban areas were already doing this. We began serving soup and sandwiches at noon, and were soon serving 50 to 100 hungry people all the soup and sandwiches they could eat. It was very simple--PBJs and soup. Ham bones and ham were brought, chicken and carcasses, thus we stirred up our own soup stock. Hardees and other wholesale food companies donated soup and sandwich items. The women contacted their friends in other churches; church leadership followed up with formal organizing of the lunch program and we had area churches committing to taking a week to operate the kitchen.
Then issue of security of the came to a head when more and more homeless people began using the church proper as a place to sleep and for protection—especially when nights were cold. After much formal discussion by the vestry, and more informal comments by the congregation, fear of vandalism, robbery and accidental fires forced the Vestry to vote to lock the church doors during the night.
The doors at Good Shepherd are red. The red door tradition originated during the Middle Ages in England when it was a sign of sanctuary—a place of safety. The Rev. Charlie Penick and others continued to challenge us that we should not have a locked church or should come up with a solution that would keep us focused on “helping our neighbor”. After the doors were locked, Charlie and the Vestry (in concert with the Christian Social Ministries Committee) decided to convert the Soup Kitchen area and the rest of the basement to an overnight sleeping for homeless people and enhanced the soup kitchen area into a formal Soup Kitchen-Homeless Shelter ministry.
It was organized so that a male volunteer would open the basement, supervise putting out the cots at 10:30 pm, explain the rules, and turn out the lights. The volunteer then slept in the kitchen area. He solved any problems (which were very few) that arose during the night and woke everyone at 7:00 am and had the place vacated by 7:30. It was very orderly activity and in time the regular homeless folks organized themselves into teams and leaders to do this and police themselves against any improper actions by the homeless guests.
The church men set up a calendar for volunteers for the overnight stay. Word spread quickly to other churches and other men volunteered. It evolved that other churches would take a full week. Thus within GS men were taking “the weekly duty” 4-5 times a year while other churches filled the rest of the year. A significant note: Jewish community volunteered, especially during the Christmas and Easter season, to sleep over at the church.
We were on our way! Although we had locked the church doors in the evening and overnight, we had opened the church for a noontime meal and an overnight lodging in the basement for anyone in the community.
Several years later, we formed a community nonprofit organization (The United Community Ministries); and the basement found another user (Narcotics Anonymous) but that is another story.
Submitted by:
Chet Mottershead
Brack Townsend
Jim Thorpe
Eddie Baysden
