Cold Weather Shelter Volunteers Needed

By now you may have heard that the Concord Cold Weather Shelter will again be run out of the St. Peter's Activity Center at 135 North State Street and the Friends Program will be managing the day to day operations. As I write you, we do not a firm open date yet. We will open as soon as possible but I do not see it happening any sooner that Wednesday, January 4th at this time. The cold weather shelter will close down on March 31, 2017.
 
I feel that the shelter effort was an overall success last year and as such Friends agreed to assist again this year once the St. Peter's location was secured through the efforts of Mayor Bouley and the generosity of Christ the King Parish. But we really need you and others like you to volunteer to make the year's undertaking a success.

The most critical piece of running the shelter is you, the volunteer. We cannot manage the shelter operations without you and until we know that we have enough volunteers committed, the shelter will not open. As we did last year, we will be using an online volunteer database system. The volunteer coordinator this year is Terry Blake. Terry was the volunteer coordinator at First Church for a number of years and I thank her for stepping forward to assist us this year. Arolyn Chappell, Friends Emergency Housing Program Director will again serve as the shelter manager.

1. Please go online NOW to volunteer for any of our three core shifts (noted below) at the cold weather shelter. Signing up online will save you time, insure that you get the times/dates that you want to volunteer and let us know that we have enough volunteers to run and operate the shelter this winter season. It is far and away the most expeditious way for us to complete our shift coverage ensuring a timely open for the shelter. Please click Concord 2017 Winter Shelter for the online signup. You can sign up for recurring shifts or simply pick and choose the shifts that fit your personal availability. For those that are unfamiliar with this system, I can assure you ANYONE can do it. Once you are signed up, the system will send e-mail reminders directly to you for your upcoming shifts.
2. In addition to our core shifts we need on call volunteers to assist when there are coverage gaps or late volunteer cancelations. If you are willing to be on an "on call roster", please indicate which shifts and day(s) of the week you are available. To be added to the on call roster, please respond directly to this e-mail and indicate that you would be available to fill in for the shift(s) and day(s) of the week as outlined below:

• Overnight shift                 6:45 p.m. - 7:00 a.m.           S   M   T   W   Th   F   Sa
• Evening check-in shift     6:45 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.           S   M   T   W   Th   F   Sa
• Morning check-out shift   6:00 a.m. - 7:30 a.m.           S   M   T   W   Th   F   Sa

3. If you would like to speak you someone concerning volunteering at the shelter, please call us at 228-7620 and leave a message and someone will get back to you.
 
Lastly, I encourage you to forward this email to anyone that you think might be willing and able to assist.