During the holiday season, many downtowners choose to volunteer with local nonprofit organizations to provide a hot dinner and a place to sleep to those in need of some holiday cheer.
One such organization is the Human Services Campus. The campus works with the Lodestar Day Resource Center, Central Arizona Shelter Services, St. Vincent de Paul and Andre House, said Margaret Kilman, assistant managing director for the Human Services Campus.
“The Human Services Campus helps build the collaboration between these different agencies,” Kilman said.
During this time of year, the Human Services Campus has many volunteers who come out to help across Maricopa County.
“We have so many wonderful volunteers that really want to help people who are on the campus and are trying to get back their lives,” Kilman said. “During the holiday we do tend to have more people wanting to volunteer. We try to encourage the volunteers to work with the campus and really coordinate those efforts.”
There are a variety of tasks for volunteers, she added.
“Some of the things we need are cleanup and coats and blankets. That way we can organize a winter clothing drive,” Kilman said. “We like to get a sense of the kinds of things (volunteers) are interested in doing and then try to match them to do something that is meaningful to them and the folks that they serve.”
St. Vincent de Paul, a primary partner at the campus, and its volunteers are helping to host a Thanksgiving dinner for the entire campus and for the community, Kilman said.
St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, which has three of its five statewide locations in Phoenix, has distributed over 5,200 boxes of food between Monday and Tuesday with the help of workers and volunteers to provide a Thanksgiving dinner to those in need, said Jerry Brown, director of public relations for St. Mary’s.
During the holiday season, they have the volunteers performing the work full-time employees do, Brown said.
“We have about 150 full-time workers and at least that many volunteers,” Brown said. “They’re helping in everything from packing the boxes, distributing the boxes, directing traffic to working our donation booth to taking turkeys and food to the public.”
Volunteers come to St. Mary’s from all over the Valley, individually or with families and church groups, he added.
St. Mary’s has also been reaching out to the needy with donations, Brown said.
“We had a huge … turkey donation drive on Saturday. We collected about 1,600 turkeys, about 10,000 pounds of food and about $16,000 in cash,” he said.
Brown said they reach out all over Arizona with their donations and food, from the Indian reservations to Flagstaff to downtown Phoenix.
“Thanksgiving is without a doubt our busiest time,” Brown said. “Without a doubt, we will see the most clients. This is the time that we count on.”
The Lincoln Family Downtown YMCA, which offers transitional housing to those in need, also becomes busier around Thanksgiving, according to Akil Zakariya, resident director at the downtown YMCA.
“Normally during the winter, when the weather is harsher, the rooms are more filled,” he said.
The housing requires payments based on the time the person wants to stay, and the units are only single occupancy. The occupant can stay in the room as long as they want as long as they pay, Zakariya said.
The downtown YMCA will host their own free Thanksgiving meal for the public from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Contact the reporter at joshua.delauder@asu.edu
