The Winter Shelter is a GO!
On Wednesday night, the Elgin City Council voted unanimously in favor of One Collective Elgin helping facilitate a winter shelter that will be open every night of the winter from December through March. Having the shelter open every night will help us better care for the people who are experiencing homelessness in our community. It also means that the opportunity to volunteer is more consistent. Together, we can help reduce homelessness in Elgin.
My role will be as the primary coordinator and facilitator for the shelter; overseeing supplies, volunteers, volunteer scheduling, budget tracking…and anything and everything else.
That said, I’m working on recruiting volunteers!
Right now, I’m working on a more detailed volunteer form for that people can use to sign up. Each night will have two shifts—6:30 pm through 7:30 am the following morning. The structure right now is that there will be two shifts: 1st shift will be from 6:30 pm through 12:30 am and 2nd shift will be from 12:30 am to 7:30 am. I’m hoping to get 4 people/shift. The positions I’ll be looking for are: 1 Shift Leader per shift, 3 volunteers to help man the shifts, 1 day point-person to be the point of contact for day-of volunteers, 1 weekly coach to help oversee the week and volunteers.
The Shift Leaders, Day Point-People, and Weekly Coaches will make up a Core Team who will receive more extensive training. I’ll be looking for, at most, 50 people who would make up this team. The Core Team will be broken up into Weekly Squads and be placed on a rotation. Squad 1 would work a week, Squad 2 the following, and so on on a rotation so there is always at least one person on shift who receives extensive training.
- Shift point-people
- act as the main supervisor and point-person for their respective shift
- first point of contact for volunteers of their shift
- coordinate with the day point-person as needed
- Always inform Weekly Coach and Shelter Director of any and all incidents
- Day point-people
- contact person in charge of filling in for any positions if a shift point-person can’t make it for their shift or if there isn’t enough volunteers for a shift
- “on-call reinforcements”
- help send reminders to the volunteers serving under their day
- Coaches
- responsible for the entire week of volunteers (56 spots–4 people/shift 2 shifts/night)
- Help coordinate for the week and send reminders to day point-people
- Coaches shouldn’t be at the shelter during their respective week
- Coaches respond to critical situations
- Coaches will follow-up with Shelter Director for any and all incidents that transpire
*Responsibilities are still being hammered out*
If you’re interested and able to help in this critical role, shoot me an email!