Nine people Wed night, seven last night, seven so far tonight. Drop in numbers likely due to yesterday being "cheque day", when people on social assistance receive their monthly cheques, opening up more options for them. Our guests continue to show their gratitude. Each of the last two evenings, someone's arrived early and helped set up the mats and chairs, another has offered to paint the shed that's used to lock up their bikes and carts and tonight one fellow brought in a big bag of chips for everyone. Cribbage has become a popular evening activity -- one man made a crib board out of cardboard Wednesday night, using pushpins as markers -- it looks amazing and we'll keep it, and we now also have a regular wooden board with pegs. Listening to hockey on the radio, reading the paper, having someone there just to talk to are also real treats.
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| Hand made cribbage board out of shoe box. |
The food has been amazing thanks to over 30 different volunteers showing up early in the morning, staying late at night or cooking up food at home and bringing it in.
With this warming trend, we expect to close in the next day or so. When we do, we'll send our guests off with a full belly, and they'll return to the places they normally spend the night: tents in parks, abandoned buildings, campers, under bridges. I've visited a some of these places in the past few days and the thought of these fine people we've come to know sleeping in these hovels brought me to tears.
We'll decide tomorrow (Friday) morning at 7 whether or not the weather conditions allow us to open up another night.
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