Church, volunteers reach out to help homeless

By Jean Reid Norman

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

Six adults and six children lined up to four pots of chili Thursday night in the social hall at Grace Community Church in Boulder City.

Volunteers from the church had gone a little overboard in preparing to feed the four homeless families who were their guests: three platters of cornbread and crackers. Vegetables. Two bowls of watermelon and grapes. And pans and pans of brownies.

The four families were calling Grace their home for the week through Family Promise, a nonprofit group that recruits churches, synagogues and mosques to host homeless families a week at a time.

The church in turn recruited teams from throughout Boulder City to make dinners for the group each night and people willing to go through a background check to stay overnight in the church. The cooking teams are asked to prepare to feed 20, so that volunteers and any guests who show up can eat with the families.

After dinner, children play while parents relax or fix lunches for the following day before they roll out their mats for the night.

“See the fun they are having?” volunteer Sandi Shaw said. “They wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t have this shelter. It wouldn’t be fun in this heat.”

Family Promise has been helping homeless families get off the streets of Clark County for 13 years, Executive Director Terry Ruth Lindemann said. The group works with 23 different “houses of faith” that host families for one week at a time four times per year.

The families stay at their host buildings at night, then go during the day to the Family Promise day center in Las Vegas — a house on the site of the Las Vegas Senior Center, 320 S. Ninth St. — where they have showers, closets and laundry facilities available, Lindemann said. Children are dropped off at school, day care or the Boys & Girls Clubs so their parents can go to, or look for, work.

This was Grace’s first full week of participation, and it seemed to be going well, said Francyl Gawryn, director of children and youth ministries at the church.

“This is a way for the community to embody hospitality and to be blessed by it,” she said. “You can’t do hospitality ministry without getting your heart touched.”

It wasn’t difficult to find volunteers, she said.

Boulder City employees took one night. St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church took another, and the Assembly of God Church another. Grace volunteers filled the other four nights, and Gawryn had more than she could use, she said.

Christopher and Kristine Tranate were grateful for the program. They moved to Las Vegas from Hayward, Calif., with their three children, ages 6 to 9, after their apartment burned down and Christopher was fired from his job as a bus driver.

“We heard there are jobs here, and rent isn’t as bad as California,” Kristine Tranate said.

Her husband added, “We wanted to start over again.”

When they first arrived, Kristine and the children stayed at Shade Tree, a shelter for women and children, but Christopher had no place to stay. He slept in the gutter.

They called every shelter in Las Vegas looking for a place where they could stay together and were referred to Family Promise two weeks ago.

“They give. They just give,” Kristine Tranate said. “They make you feel at peace. You don’t see anything to make you feel bad, that they’re doing this because you’re homeless. It’s all positive.”

Breezy and Luke Noblitt ended up with Family Promise two weeks ago, as well, after he lost his job at a casino. The young couple — he’s 18, she’s 19 — have family in the area but were determined to make it on their own, said Breezy Noblitt, who is six months pregnant. A friend recommended them to Family Promise.

“He’s found another job at another casino, and we’ll be back on our feet before the baby is due,” she said.

Most of the families that go through the program are back on their feet within the 90-day limit, Lindemann said. Family Promise has case workers meet with participants regularly to ensure they have everything they need and a plan to become independent.

“Our goals are pretty focused: employment with a living wage. We want to see them working, getting their own place,” Lindemann said. “Constantly, every day, we’re working on that. Those who do want to be successful at 90 days are moving into their own apartment.”

Lindemann said she hopes Grace finds the experience so positive that it signs on to take families four times a year, like most of the “houses of faith” do.

“We’re real excited about Boulder City,” she said. “It’s a beautiful place.”