Mishkan Torah to Sponsor Walk to Combat Homelessness

On Nov. 4, you can enjoy an autumn walk and fight homelessness, which affects our whole community so adversely. Mishkan Torah will host a Fannie Mae “Help The Homeless Walk" beginning at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 4.

We will be meeting at Mishkan Torah, 10 Ridge Road, Greenbelt, MD, and then walking around Greenbelt Lake. We ask everyone to join together in a community effort to end homelessness.

Every day, over 12,000 men, women and children in our Metro DC communities are homeless. More than 2,700 of our Prince George’s County Public School children experience homelessness each year. Over 136,000 veterans experienced homelessness from 2009 to 2011, 300 of whom were 18 to 30 and served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

There is a good chance that someone we work with, worship with, or go to school with, is homeless or in imminent danger of homelessness. By walking, each person offers Warm Nights to people in need by raising much-needed funds for a local nonprofit Community Crisis Services, Inc. (CCSI).

CCSI has been serving individuals and families in crisis in Prince George’s County 24 hours per day, every day since 1970. In the community, it is often the first point of contact for individuals in crisis—who are seeking disaster services, shelter placement, social services, or reporting child or adult abuse, or simply seeking a compassionate listener. It also offers suicide prevention and intervention. counseling.

CCSI has grown from a single hotline in a closet-sized office to an indispensable resource in the community—this past year, answering more than 143,000 calls from individuals and families in crisis and in need, including over 42,000 calls seeking homeless services.

Its Warm Nights Shelter is a hypothermia shelter that accommodates families and children in the greater Washington area. This past winter the Warm Nights hypothermia shelter program provided 5,200 bed-nights of shelter from November to April and was often overfilled. CCSI is staffed and ready to answer any kind of crisis call, every hour of everyday of the year, and it takes its 24/7/365 commitment extremely seriously. During severe snows and other weather events, including the recent derecho, CCSI has taken necessary measures to remain staffed and operational.

Please walk and please give generously. Gather with us at Mishkan Torah and walk to show we care. We will have refreshments as well as child and adult education on homelessness. You need not pay to walk, but you must fill out the registration form. And it would be wonderful if you could give as an individual or family – every dollar counts.

Child walker registration is $20 and adult registration is $30. Each adult and child who registers will receive a Help the Homeless T-shirt. If you cannot join us, you can sponsor someone to walk–as many school children walk but cannot afford to give. You may register for the walk at Mishkan Torah.