Five WSSU Honors Program students visited Samaritan Ministries shelter and participated in the devotion and overnight volunteer opportunity on Jan. 30.
“It was an awesome and humbling experience,” said Courtney DuBose, a junior business management major.
DuBose, Stephanie Douthit, a senior mass communications major; Shaun Trotter, a junior exercise science major, Monica Reid, a freshman economics major; Patrick Thomas, a junior justice studies major, and their adviser and program assistant Carolyn Thomas, volunteered their time in the shelter by preparing and serving breakfast and dinner, assisting staff with guest check-in and check-out procedures.
The group also rotated two-hour shifts watching security monitors.
Though it was an opportunity to earn credit for community service hours, Reid said she would do it again.
“I just feel blessed and humbled to have volunteered here [shelter],” Reid said.
Samaritan Ministries, located at 1243 Patterson Ave., has been helping men in the community for 20 years.
“The Inn provides shelter, health services, referrals for housing and case management for various agencies,” said staff counselor Donnie Ray Scott.
This Christian-based establishment provides dinner and breakfast, bedding, showers, a laundry facility and evening devotion.
Last year, the Samaritan Inn provided 533,445 nights of shelter to homeless men. The Soup Kitchen served 157,976 meals and Project Cornerstone assists men with substance abuse, recovery, employment and housing.
Scott, who has been working at the shelter for more than 10 years, has seen the growth of the shelter and its impact.
“The average age of the men that come to the shelter is 45 years old with varied education backgrounds ranging from Ph.D.s to minimal education,” said Scott, who was homeless for 21 years.
“Many of the men have some type of mental illness or substance abuse, but recently the shelter has been hit with those suffering from foreclosure and eviction,” Scott said.
Scott says the Project Cornerstone program is very intense and assists men with substance abuse problems. Many of the men in the shelter celebrate months or years of sobriety in the evening devotion.
Norman Stewart, 58, is homeless, but he volunteers in the shelter as well.
“The Inn is a Christian-based industry. It gives you the time to figure out what you want to do when you re-enter society,” Stewart said.
“The staff encourages you to put forth your best effort to get back on your feet.”
According to an article on Jan. 30 in The Winston-Salem Journal, the homeless population had been estimated at about 11,000, but the slumping economy has forced many people out on the streets.