Emergency shelters for bitter cold?

[genevra-mcneil.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, about a decade ago, I was on someone's list and I'd like to get back on it. I was "someone who can help" when some organization (can't remember which one) pulled together emergency shelters for really awful bitter cold nights like last night. Mostly I provided large quantities of hot, filling, caloric food. The shelter was in a church basement somewhere and it was run by some organization associated with a college of some sort.... Yes, I'm entirely aware of the extraordinarily useless vagueness of that sentence. That said, can someone point me int he right direction?

Clearly, the brutal cold streak is ending but I thought that I'd see if I could help out next time. I don't have the time or energy for regular volunteering, but I'm happy to make soup for a pop-up shelter during the next cold snap. My google-fu fails me, mostly due to extreme vagueness.

Comments

[ron_newman]

sounds like maybe Harvard Square Homeless Shelter which is at University Lutheran Church and is run by students and volunteers.

[jicama]

The Somerville Homeless Coalition has a shelter in the basement of the big stone church at the corner of College and Chapel (now Holy Bible Baptist). I don't know anything about their operations, though.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Having been in that church to see Theater@First in the past, I found myself noticing the homeless shelter and wondering just what the floor plan of that building looks like and how far the secret subterranean passages must go. :)

[enhf94.livejournal.com]

I imagine it'd be fairly tricky, liability-wise, for a shelter to take in homemade food to distribute - but nonetheless, worth a try!

Or, if you were willing to switch up your helping plan, consider volunteering at any of the several free meals around (Harvard Square First Parish's Tuesday Meals comes to mind), or volunteering for a shift at the Greater Boston Food Bank. GBFB is fun, and most jobs are non-heavy-lifting.

*not the help you were looking for, I know.