Our Staff: Love in Action
I want to start this update by thanking the Lazarus House staff for their exceptional efforts and creativity as we make necessary changes to the way we serve our Guests and run the ministry in this stressful environment and theses fast-changing times. Thank you.
In the last two weeks, donors and friends of Lazarus House have donated food in such quantity that we’ve stuffed our storerooms and rented not one, but TWO shipping containers as temporary storage! Through the overwhelming response to our “Pop Your Trunk” and “Porch Pick-up” food drives, friends, schools, and faith partners have blessed the ministry with enormous quantities of food for our Guests!
We put out the call for specific food items because, in EACH of the last three weeks, we’ve seen a 20% increase in the number of Guests coming to the Soup Kitchen and the Food Pantry. Your continued generosity matters as we expect the need to continue to grow in the short term and surge in August after the $600/week unemployment benefit ends.
Our Soup Kitchen provides hot breakfasts and lunches Monday through Friday and breakfast with extra food for the day on Saturdays. The Food Pantry distributed groceries to 999 people last week, and we are preparing for more this week. How do we know it was 999 bags of groceries? We prepared 1000 and had ONE leftover!
Over the years, the Lazarus House shelter has offered dignity, comfort, and safety to as many people as possible – about 40 at full occupancy. We have traditionally had single males, single females, and families living at the Shelter. COVID-19 has forced us to change the way we shelter our Guests, so, going forward, we will
focus specifically on the care of families
. We will create “suites” for five families consisting of a bedroom, living room, and a private bathroom; in this way, we can offer reasonable protection for our Guests and staff against the spread of the virus until a vaccine is available.
Exciting (and important) Volunteer Opportunity
Over the next six weeks, we will be looking for volunteers to come to the Shelter while it is closed to safely join in the repair, beautification, and creation of our new shelter space. We’ll need small teams of people
with skills in carpentry, wall repair, window and door replacement, painting, and interior design
.
Please contact Marcy Furse, our Coordinator of Volunteers, to find out more – [email protected].
ISHAH HOUSE Opens as a COVID Recovery Center!
Lazarus House Ministries celebrates the opening of our Ishah House facility as COVID-19 recovery center! We offered the building rent-free to the City of Lawrence. The city is staffing and running this program where patients with COVID-19 go to recover after discharge from the hospital and remain for the duration of their isolation period. We Praise God that we could engage in this type of public/private partnership for the benefit of Lawrence patients who are homeless and housing insecure.
The generosity of our Lazarus House Community has blessed us so that we, together, are a blessing for the people of Lawrence. If you would like to support Lazarus House at this time, please consider a
financial donation
.