“They have this mobile shower unit. We looked at what they are doing and said, ‘we can help you guys,’” said Ted McKown, a church elder not currently serving on session.
Street Showers brings a mobile trailer to underserved communities “to provide our guests with 20 minutes of hot, soapy, solitude so they may leave with a heightened sense of dignity,” according to its Web site.
Lance Olinski began Street Showers in 2017 with a small trailer containing two bathrooms and shower stalls. He takes the trailer to locations in the Dallas area, including Plano on Wednesdays.
McKown said the church discovered it could “add value” to this ministry by bringing clothes to the shower location in Plano every Wednesday, where 30-40 people are served. Street Showers provides guests with new underwear, a bag of toiletries, and a clean towel.
“They would shower and put their old clothes on, and we thought, ‘we can do better than that.’ We have a clothes closet at our church that has been going about 53 years. Now during covid, we’ve shut down the building,” said McKown, who also moderates the church’s mission study team.
So now, the clothes closet is going to where the people gather who need it – just another example of how the Church of Jesus Christ is being the Church during challenging times. Often, people arrive before the showers are open to pick out the clean clothes they will be putting on afterward.
