Buy Sleeping Bags for the Boston Homeless!

Hi! I'm Adam, and for the past 3 years I've volunteered with a group of friends called the Back Bay Mobile Soup Kitchen. To be clear, we're not a registered non-profit or charity, just a group of friends who walk around Back Bay in Boston and give out sandwiches, socks, water, and other basic necessities to the homeless. Doing so we realized that a lot of homeless people actually avoid homeless shelters, and as such don't necessarily have access to free resources unless someone literally walks up and offers them. Boston's Section 8 voucher program is very slow-moving and many on the streets have been waiting for years. Add in the effects of mental illness, and for some we are one of the only resources functionally available to them.

That said, it's also a good time and we all have a lot of fun doing it. However, we're mostly working class folks and rent in and around Boston isn't known for being cheap. This has always limited our capacity to provide as many supplies as we would like. This is mostly not a big deal, but when it comes to providing more expensive items like clothing or sleeping bags, it has at times forced us to hand out items which aren't as high quality as we would like. Last year we raised several hundred dollars between ourselves to buy blankets for the winter, but since we tried to buy as many as we could, the blankets we ended up ordering were thin and too small. Even though we handed out hundreds, we just felt like it wasn't accomplishing much. This really weighed on me, seeing people I knew freezing out in the cold and knowing I wasn't actually doing much to help them.

This year we're hoping to raise some money to buy usable sleeping bags for the homeless around Back Bay. The goal we set will supply us with 200 sleeping bags. It won't be REI quality, but it will be enough to make the difference between life or death on a really cold night.

If you can help, we can ensure a winter that's at least a bit more bearable for the homeless in Boston. And if you'd like to see your donation in action, feel free to come to St. Clement's Eucharistic Shrine at 6PM on any Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday, and join us!