For many years, St. Luke has been part of the network of churches working with Families Moving Forward, an interfaith organization assisting homeless families in the Twin Cities. Twice a year for a week at a time, we host homeless families in our church. During those weeks, the guest families are bussed from the Day Shelter to St. Luke for the night. Our volunteers then prepare and serve a hot supper and arrange for activities and entertainment for the children during the evening. We also provide breakfast in the morning and assist the families in preparing bag lunches for the next day. We set up inflatable mattresses with bedding in our classrooms.

This commitment requires the efforts of many volunteers, including people to set up the living areas for the week, prepare and serve dinners, and to stay overnight with our guest families. For dinner, we generally have two volunteers for each night, each responsible for bringing from home two items on the pre-planned menu. For the overnights, we generally have two adults who sleep in the pastors' office in sleeping bags on inflatable beds. This has been an enriching experience for many of our St. Luke families who have done the overnights together.

Our next hosting week is: April 15 to 21, 2012 (tentative)

Contact Persons: Sheryl Bjork and Steve Warner

To volunteer, please go into the Families Moving Forward page under Resources for Members and click on the appropriate links to volunteer for serving dinner or breakfast and staying overnight.