The Warm Welcome program is getting ready for its second year of operation.
The local shelter, which houses people without lodging overnight during the winter, held a training session for new volunteers on Saturday at St. Paul's United Church.
Seven volunteers attended the meeting, which was run by Lieutenant Brian Bobolo of the Salvation Army and St. Paul's pastor Brenna Nickel. There are about 30 volunteers signed up so far.
During the two-hour session, Bobolo explained how clients find their way to the program, the duties required of volunteers, and common items needed for the shelter.
"Some people who (attended) were here last year. We just listened to their stories and they were all positive," said Bobolo.
"The general consensus of today was that people who come to help out and volunteer at Warm Welcome, they grow more themselves than they had ever expected. They get more out of it than they put in. You put in just a few hours, you serve coffee, a little bit of your time, and you are transformed by being there. You discover your own humanity, your own sense of a purpose in life. You discover that you can have a lot of care and love within you that you didn't know you had."
The shelter was open four nights a week last winter, but the plan is to stay open every night this time around. The program begins Dec. 1 and has a tentative end date of March 31, although Bobolo said it could stay open longer if the weather is bad.
Among the items most in demand are coats, hygiene products and towels. People can bring those supplies to the Salvation Army and earmark them for Warm Welcome. Financial donations are also welcomed. People can address a cheque to either the Salvation Army or St. Paul's and designate it for the shelter. Tax receipts will be issued.
Prospective volunteers found out Saturday how they would spend their evenings at the shelter.
"The primary focus of our volunteers is to just provide hospitality, help us to build that sense of community, help to welcome people, get to know them, get to know their names, play games. We have card games and tournaments and they're pretty cutthroat at times, I think," Bobolo laughed.
Anyone who couldn't attend on Saturday but wants to help out can call the Salvation Army and get all the information they need. Bobolo said phone calls have been coming in since mid-October.
The shelter is making a big push this winter to get local service groups to sign on for a weekend or a full week, in order to fill in the gaps.
Even those who aren't volunteering at the shelter can help out by pointing the group toward people they may know who could benefit from the program.
"There are people out there that are a little bit nervous maybe sometimes, because of pride, to ask for help, whether it's at Warm Welcome or the food bank. We spoke for some time about the need to reach out, if you know people who are out there that might be staying in their car this year," Bobolo said.
"That's what Warm Welcome has always been about from the get-go. It's about a community coming together to take care of its own. Here in Estevan, we know how to take care of our own. We are really calling upon everybody, with donations or volunteers or just to be our eyes and ears. That's the really important thing.
"Call the Salvation Army and say, 'Look, I know there's someone over there. I'm not too sure what to say or how to approach them, but can you go out?' So we have our community response vehicle and we bring food out and talk to them."
