It’s going to be very cold over the next few days in my area and I’d like to buy something for the people who are homeless, particularly ones who won’t be in a shelter.
For budgeting, there is one shelter in my area for adults and one for children/teenagers. I don’t know how many people would not have shelter but in the past, I have planned for 40 people when providing food for people in a shelter.
My budget is about $200 USD; what would be the most useful? thermal blankets? hot food?
Edit: thanks to all who responded. I called the shelter and the most needed items are (1) sleeping bags (2) very warm gloves to prevent frostbite (3) boots
Thrift store blankets, gloves, and coats? Definitely take them home and wash them first.
If you can get some MREs (meals ready-to-eat), those might be a good option for hot food you can give out. That way the meals are hot when they want them.
Whatever you end up doing, I applaud your efforts.
Edit: Yes, donating to a local shelter is nice, but OP specifically said they wanted to help those who could not take make it to a shelter.
Better than MREs is to donate to an active soup kitchen. They will use the cost of the MREs to make way more hot meals overall.
Most will also take socks, sleeping bags, toiletries, etc, but cash is likely the most useful. They know what they need the most.
Every homeless person I’ve asked why they aren’t at Jesus Saves (nickname of a shelter around here) getting warm and getting food, they tell me they’re banned from there.
The ones outside still are the ones who for whatever reason aren’t getting helped by those orgs. Maybe they caused trouble, maybe something else. But giving to those orgs is going to miss some people, and the people it’s going to miss are the ones you see outside in this cold.
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