Greensboro Urban Ministries

Hannah discusses upcoming Fall and Thanksgiving events

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of CarolinaCares. I'm Hannah Tyler. Join me
today, Brian Hunt of Greensboro UrbanMinistries. Hello, Hey, good morning.
I am so glad you are heretoday to talk about everything Greensboro Urban
Ministries For someone who's never heard ofthe organization before, what do you guys
do? Yeah, So, GreensboroUrban Ministry has been in the community a
long time, nearly sixty years.We were started by a group of churches

(00:24):
that came together to really serve thecommunity. Three ways. We do food,
shelter, and solutions. So werun one of the largest shelters in
the community, which also includes somehousing campuses that we have. We distribute
a lot of food every month,and we work closely with our clients with
a network of services and supports ontheir journey towards sustainability. How long have

(00:49):
you been at Greensburo Urban missus.I'm pretty new you are, Yeah,
okay, what's pretty new? Well, I've been this is ten months,
so I just started out, sovery new. Yes, So what led
you to where you are today?Vocation? Vocation, So a little bit
about me background. I've been inthe community for nearly twenty one years in
the triad. For about ten ofthose years I was in the faith community.

(01:11):
I worked at several churches, alarger one and helped plant two smaller
ones. And then about ten yearsago I had the opportunity to get into
the nonprofit world, in particularly withhomelessness, and so for the last nine
years I've been working to and preventhomelessness. I did some of that work

(01:34):
in Winston Salem and I've been inGuilford County the last six years. Oh
well, we're glad you're here.So when you joined Greensboro Urban Ministry,
what's kind of your vision for theorganization? Where do you want to see
it go? Well, you know, one, there's already a rich legacy
of great work that's happened, likeI said, nearly sixty years. I
think we have the opportunity to continueto grow and expand our services. The

(01:59):
need is significant in both housing andfood insecurity, and I think also what's
unique about us is we're truly anecumenical, broad based network of the faith
community. So we're pulling together resourcesacross hundreds of churches and thousands of individuals,

(02:20):
as well as support from the civicand business community. To say,
hey, let's work together to servethe folks in our community, not only
who are in crisis, but thatwe can come alongside them so that they
can move towards their own goals ofhealth and sustainability. So for me,
I think it's a unique space wherewe can continue to partner with the community,

(02:43):
with the faith network that we have, so that folks can really get
some help. Two focuses. Youhave three focuses, but let's quick take
it down to food and shelter.Yeah, things that so many people take
for granted, but now with justthe way everything's going with inflation, not
people who've maybe never needed to reachout to you before are looking at a
situation where they can't put food onthe table for their families. How do

(03:05):
you guys help that? All?Right? Two primary ways. Number One,
Potter's House Community Kitchen. We're servingfour hundred hot meals a day,
oh my goodness, an additional twohundred hot breakfast and dinners a day to
anyone in the community that's hungry.So come if you're hungry, no questions
asked. We're gonna give you ahot meal. And where's Potter's House located?
Right at our main campus on GateCity Boulevard downtown, So there's that,

(03:30):
But then really the probably what we'remost excited about is what we're calling
our Client Choice Food Pantry. Thisis a shift we've made in the last
year to where clients can come inand choose the food that they need to
take care of themselves and their families. We're seeing one hundred and fifty families
that's not individuals, but families aday coming in making these hard choices.

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You know, inflation's high, costof living's gone up, rent's gone up.
We've got folks coming in and saying, you know what, we need
these lower costs so that we canmake choices about gas in our car,
getting our kids to school. Andso we are. We are distributing as
much as one hundred thousand pounds offood a month. Wow, folks think

(04:15):
me. So we're really grateful forthe way the folks have stepped up.
We just did our annual Fall fooddrive. But we're always open to more
donations for food and certainly monetary donationsas well. Are there any specific items
in terms of food you guys arein need of that Maybe people aren't donating
as much or you can't get yourhands on that really could benefit families.
Well, we're always open to thenon perishable food items. We just did

(04:39):
this with our inner Fall food drives. You know about twenty five grocery stores
across the community. But what's interestingis if folks are willing to also support
us financially, not only can wemake a dollar go a long ways.
We take those dollars and invest themin our perishable items. So, you
know, dairy products, fresh fruitsand vegetables, meats that folks are choosing,

(05:03):
you know, the same things wewould want for our own families.
We can go purchase those at areally good price and take care of folks
in the community. So we say, yes, absolutely welcome the non perishable
items, but certainly we can makemonetary donations go a long way. Awesome.
And now let's talk about the housingaspect of it. Now, I
know you guys have the Weaver HouseShelter, so let's start with that.

(05:26):
Okay, Yeah, it's one hundredbed shelter. It's the largest in Guildford
County. We can house approximately eightyfour men and sixteen women. It is
really often and always quite full.We have a waiting list often to get
in there. But what I loveabout what we do it's not just that

(05:46):
we house them for the night,but we pair our case management services with
our clients, so we say,this's all the time. That recovery doesn't
just happen overnight, it happens overtime. So that is really a key
crisis intervention that we offer the community. But we also have more. We
have Pathways Family Shelter. We havea sixteen unit family shelter at a different

(06:09):
location in the community just for families. It is always one hundred percent full.
We have a waiting list of rightnow roughly fifty families seeking shelter and
safety. And then we also haveanother campus called Partnership Village where we service
support. This campus, it's aboutsixty eight units and provide case management support

(06:29):
to families who have experienced homelessness.And right now I can tell you I
have seventy over seventy kids out there, Oh my goodness, just to give
you an idea, and so we'rewe're not only trying to think about how
to you know, navigate this withour adults, but we've got a lot
of kids in our midst and wewant to try the best we can to
take care of these kids. Yeah, they shouldn't have to worry about where

(06:50):
their food is coming from or wherethey're going to sleep that night. They
should be focused on being a kidand the things that you know, I'm
sure you and I were so luckyto be a part of. Now you
mentioned case management and when you werecarving up the housing. There's so many
different types of unhomed individuals. Ithink so often we get the mental image
of our head of a drug addicton a corner who's putting their money towards

(07:11):
their habits and not housing. Butthere's also families, there's mental instability that
causes someone to be unhoused. Sois that when you bring your case management
in and kind of work with theindividual to you know, get past where
they are in their life and moveforward. We work with anybody wherever they
are on the spectrum, whether it'sa mental illness that's a challenge, whether
it's a substance abuse issue. Butyou're exactly right, it's not just those

(07:33):
needs. We've got folks that arejust one crisis away, one loss of
a job, one you know,one casualty away from not having a safety
network to help I'll just give youone one story I heard recently. We
were interviewing a person for our foodpantry, and she began to tell us
that she's she had been coming toour pantry for nearly ten years because she's

(07:57):
got a large family, and shewould choose our pantry because she had like
eight kids to feed. And thenshe would tell us that she for dates,
just to save on money, shewould come to our potter's House community
kitchen with her husband and have adate. I think the misnomer is that
these are just folks who are indire, dire situations. But these are
folks you and I would know.Yeah. I walked up to a grocery

(08:18):
store just this past weekend of amom and her daughter, a teenage daughter
look like my own daughter, AndI said, why are you here volunteering?
And she said, well, y'allwere the first to help us when
we were in a housing crisis.I didn't have the rent money. You
stepped up and then we needed food. And so I'm looking at this mother

(08:39):
and her daughter and I'm like,and you're here serving in volunteering because you've
been helped. So those are thestories that sometimes people don't hear the success
stories was give back to who helpedme when I needed it the most exactly.
And now you had mentioned that youwould help them when they were in
a situation where they couldn't afford rent. So listening right now, and maybe

(09:01):
they did lose that job. They'renot to the point yet where they're losing
their home or they need somewhere togo, but it's getting close. Can
you help them with rent assistants ormortgage assistances either. Yeah, So every
month it's on a first come,first serve basis, but we try to
help those that are struggling with theirrent. You know, pre COVID,
we were you could help on averageabout four hundred dollars a month to get

(09:22):
somebody over the hump. Well we'repost COVID. We all know what Housing
has done, and so we're helpinganyone, anyone from one thousand to fifteen
hundred dollars a month if we can. Now that money goes fast. That's
all private support that we have.Just this past month, we were able
to help about seventy individuals and roughlyforty thousand dollars went out the door.

(09:46):
You know, we'll you know,again, first come first serve, we'll
try to assess your situation. Butmore importantly, even if we can help
in the crisis, we want towork with that person on Okay, what
are the steps they need to takeso that they're not necessarily in that situation
thirty days later, sixty days later. So yes, we absolutely will help

(10:07):
folks that come our way. Sowe are talking to Brian Han of Greensboro
Urban Ministries. And to make allthese programs successful, you need to raise
some money. And you guys havesome events coming up. Let's talk about
Feast of Caring real quick. Yeah, So Feast of Caring has been This
I think is our thirty second yearof this event. It's a lunch and
a dinner that we do on Novemberthe sixteenth at First Baptist Church in downtown

(10:33):
Greensboro. It's just a great wayto remind folks about the need. Right
it's a season of Thanksgiving, it'sa season of giving. We host these
meals. They're very modest meals.They're soups that are either donated or made
by various organizations. You get aa crafted bowl that's made by local artists.

(10:56):
Wow. But really we're trying toraise resources to sustain in our mission,
and so if folks want to comeout they can be a part of
that. They can go to ourwebsite Greensboro Urban Ministry dot org and learn
more about that. But we certainlywould welcome the community support of that annual
event. And what date did yousay that is against? Yeah, that's
Thursday, November sixteenth, both lunchand dinner. Awesome and what a great

(11:20):
way. You get a cool bull, but you're also helping the community and
it's really also very humbling to bethere with you guys. And then you
also have the holiday honor card.What is that a holiday? Yeah,
we're really excited about this. Sowe've been doing a holiday honor card for
forty years and this year we're reallyexcited because we have a new artist who
has designed this beautiful card called VictoriousKindness Again. You can learn more about

(11:45):
it on our website. But thehonor card again is a way for us
to raise money towards our mission.It's this beautiful holiday card. A lot
of times folks buy them in bulk, lots of them to share with their
family and friends as they celebrate theseason. And so we're really excited to
reveal this new honor card. Youcan actually see it on a website.
We're going to be doing some publicevents and again it again supports the mission

(12:09):
that we have to serve folks inGreensboro. And if someone wanted to purchase
that card, where can they getthose at? Oh, there are all
kinds of stores across the community.Again, I'm going to point you to
our website because they list them fromBarnes and Noble to much more local shops.
And then of course they can purchasethem direct from us at Greensbourbon Ministry.

(12:30):
And one other event you guys havecoming on that you're a part of.
This is actually how I discovered GreensburgUrban Ministries is there's a Thanksgiving five
k coming up because some people liketo run before Thanksgiving, where you guys
are actually going to be benefiting fromthe proceeds to that. Yeah, you
talk about the Westward five k.Yes, yeah, So these are again
we love these third party events.These are folks in the community, whether

(12:50):
it be neighborhoods, organizations that say, you know what, we're going to
do an event for you. We'regoing to do the work, We're going
to run, We're going to runwith you and we want to support you.
And so we love the folks ofWesterwood Neighborhood. We love just the
way they've been a support of usand the way they partner with us.
I'll be there. Are you running? Folks have asked me. I do

(13:15):
love to run, so maybe Ishould. So far, I believe I'm
supposed to just show up and saythank you, but maybe I'll get get
out there and run. But it'sa wonderful event and it's a beautiful time
of year right there at the beginningof November. So really, what I'm
taking away from this interview is there'sno reason, no way you cannot help
Greensboro Urban Ministry Because if you liketo eat, you have the thirty second
annual Feast of Carrying. If youlike to run, which more power to

(13:37):
you, you have that five kcoming up, and then you have the
Honor Card as well. So literallysomething for everybody to give back to a
great community. Yeah, that's what'sso so fun about this organization. It's
so accessible, right you can youcan donate, you can run, you
can eat, you can walk.We just we just did that the crop
walk. But you can come.We encourage folks to come and see volunteer

(14:01):
with us, come see the storiesthat are happening. We'd love for you
to be a part of our storyand our mission. Awesome Brian Han with
Greensboro Urban Ministries. If someone wantsto get a hold of you and the
organization, how they do that,Go straight to our website Greensboro Urbanministry dot
org and everything you need to knowis right there and we'll make sure you
find what you need. Brian,thank you so much for coming in today.
Thanks for having me. It's beengreat.