ORLANDO, Fla. – The cold temperatures can cause even tougher times for those most at risk, such as those experiencing homelessness in Central Florida.
The Christian Service Center has been working all week to try and bring them some warmth.
“The shelters are full and there’s really not a lot of places for people to go here in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties,” said Executive Director Eric Gray.
The center in Parramore, which typically helps people experiencing homelessness, collected blankets and handed them out to anyone in need.
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“We did something abnormal that we don’t usually do and put out a call to the community, just sort of a Hail Mary, and just said, ‘Hey, if anyone can bring blankets, we’re down to our last seven,” Gray said.
Community members showed up in droves with blankets. Gray said volunteers distributed more than 500 blankets already last week, then another 250 Saturday, and expected even more Sunday.
“On a day like today we will probably see about 400 new people, but throughout the year I’ll see about 5,000 new people,” Gray said.
It was a record year for the service center as far as rescuing adults and children from homelessness and Gray said an effort just like this is one of the first steps for outreach to start the process.
“The entire effort to help people exit homelessness is about building relationships and sometimes it’s as simple as that blanket that you hand them,” he said.
Gray asked, even if you couldn’t donate here, to go into the new year with a different outlook on humanity.
“If I could ask the community to make one new year’s resolution, it would be to change something really simple and that’s to not refer to them as a homeless person but as a person experiencing homelessness,” he said.
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