Joanne Keefe and a handful of others ducked out of Wednesday's cold into St. John's Episcopal Church for the fourth day the Grace Center has been open since starting up last month.
The center, she said, offers a place for the city's homeless and others who need a place to stay warm during the day. Aside from Sawyer Free Library and the Rose Baker Senior Center, there aren't other places for them.
Grace Center opened Dec. 22. Since then, said the Rev. Tom Bentley, pastor at Trinity Congregational Church next door, the program has served about 12 to 15 people each day. It's open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday each week; it's a traveling day center at the moment, and bounces each day between Trinity, St. John's and the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church on Middle Street.
Right now, said Bentley, the center's a place for people to get out of the cold, and do some work toward getting back on their feet. It's starting small now, he said, but the center aims to serve as a hub for people in need. It's becoming a place, he said, where people can come and find out where they need to go get help. Grace Center, he said, welcomes everyone who walks in the door.
But, said the Rev. Ron Gariboldi, formerly of Holy Family Parish, it's a place for triage. If people need serious psychological or medical help, the center staff will try to get them where they need to go.
The center is run by a cohort of volunteers supervised by either local clergy or volunteers with social services experience.
Volunteers have come from local churches, the Temple Ahavat Achim, and the local Buddhist community. Bentley said that, while Grace Center is a faith-based initiative, anyone who wants to help out is more than welcome.
"People are willing to step up and help when they perceive a need," said the Rev. Alice Erickson of the West Gloucester Trinitarian Congregational Church.
Grace Center, Bentley said, will provide a place for people to come in and to take positive steps forward. In the short term, he said, the center is building relationships with the people who come in. Gariboldi said those relationships are essential in helping people move on.
The center, said Bentley, is modeled, loosely after the St. Francis House in Boston.
But the center's still mobile at this point. It doesn't have much in the way of computers and phone lines, to help people navigate fuel assistance, health care, or other services.
The center, Bentley said, is looking for a permanent building where it can supply solutions to those kinds of need.
Right now, however, it will meet what needs it can, he said. And with state-funded initiatives waiting all over the country, he said, it's up to faith communities to start these types of programs.
The center's goal, said the Rev. Arthur McDonald of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Essex, is getting people in a place where they won't need it.
In that way, he said, it's designed to put itself out of business.
Steven Fletcher may be contacted at 1-978-283-7000 x3455, or sfletcher@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevengdt.
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