What’s Up?

– by Henry Krewer, December 2020

“It Was the Best of Times; It Was the Worst of Times”

Before I start I want to thank you for your generosity over the years which has enabled Corpus Christi House to do all that it does to ease the stress that homelessness has on our guests. The history of Corpus Christi is the history of your generosity which has been responsible for all that we have been able to do.

Like many of you, the COVID-19 virus has disrupted every aspect of our lives, especially at Corpus. Many of our valued volunteers, because of their vulnerability to this virus infection, cannot risk the exposure that volunteering at Corpus entails. I am one of them. Providing a virus safe day shelter and at the same time limiting the person-to-person contact of our guests and volunteers has been a challenge. Our limited space just does not allow the necessary physical distancing that is the best practice to lower the community spread of this virus among our guests. To meet this challenge, our Board has agreed to partner in the new Warming Center, which is a cooperative effort of several agencies with the City of Boise. The new center will take over some of the services that we offered to our guests, such as a safe place to get out of the cold, a place to have a meal, and a place to use computers. Interfaith Sanctuary is in charge of running the center MondayFriday, while Corpus will run it on Saturdays and Sundays. During this time Corpus will still be open on Americana Boulevard, but with reduced hours, so that our guests can get their mail, take a shower and receive clothing. This will be the way we will continue our mission until things get back to normal. Be assured that during this time Marc Schlegel-Preheim, our Shelter Coordinator, and Mia Crosthwaite, our Volunteer Coordinator, along with our volunteers and guest workers will continue the hard work of providing hospitality services to those in need in the City of Boise. We invite you to help them in any way that you can to ease the burdens of homelessness.

Like everything in this pandemic, the upcoming holidays will be different for you as well as for Corpus and our homeless. While the way we celebrate them may change, their meaning will not change. With that in mind, we pray that you remain safe throughout the holidays and wish you and your families a blessed Christmas. Thank you for all that you do for Corpus and our homeless, and please don’t forget to pray for us.