Benton Street Baptist Church

Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

Out of the Cold

The Tuesday night Out of the Cold program re-opens for its ninth season at Benton on November 4, 2008 and runs until early spring 2009.

Volunteers:

There is quite often a need for volunteers who can staff one of many shifts starting at 4:00 PM on Tuesday until 7:45 AM on Wednesday. For more information contact the church office.

This past winter seemed especially long and cold, and it was our happy privilege to feed up to 180 guests and to provide sleeping accomodation for up to 75 guests on Tuesday evenings.

Ministry Purpose

The purpose of our program is to provide the homeless of our community with warm and safe overnight accommodation over the winter months.

Benton Street Baptist Church opened its doors to the homeless of the K-W area on Tuesday evenings beginning in November 2000. Our facility is open to them once a week from 6 p.m. on Tuesday until 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday from November 1st. to mid April.

We also provide an evening meal, light breakfast and bagged lunch, if requested. Our guests eat and sleep in our gym, with a separate room for our women. Our guests and volunteers interact with each other as they play cards and table games or just talk. A video is shown most evenings. Some of our guests come only for the meal when their income is just not enough.

Our program is run totally by volunteers, for which training is provided, and totally dependant on donations from other supporting churches and also from the wider community.