| Memorial service remembers homeless who have died |
By: PAULINE SCHREIBER, Special to the News
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Posted: Friday, November 28, 2008 10:26 pm
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Youngsters and adults shivered in a biting wind last week during a memorial service for those who died while homeless in Minnesota this past year.
This year’s service in Central Park in Faribault, the seventh organized by the Rice County Homeless Response Team, was a bit more somber, as a man from Faribault and a man from Owatonna were among those who died, said Carol Juvland, social worker for Three Rivers Action Council and a member of the response team.
“Some of us on the response team worked with them,” Juvland said. “It makes this year’s service more personal to us.”
About 15 different agencies, all working to address homelessness, are members of the response team. Representatives of those agencies all told of encountering more people applying for services.
Inmates at Faribault’s state prison made tombstones for the 51 people who had died. The first name, age and hometown are on the tombstones, which are on display in Central Park as part of National Homelessness Awareness Week.
Along with the response team members, around 60 Faribault Lutheran School fifth- to eighth-grade students attended the service. Attending made homelessness more real to sixth-grader Tanner Schmitz.
“It’s a lot of people who died from it,” Schmitz said.
FLS students are working to raise money to help the homeless, said Libby Klein, a FLS eighth-grader. She helped response team members with the memorial service by giving a scripture reading.
“It’s made me realize there is a bigger need for helping the homeless than I thought there was,” Klein said.
The response team meets once a month to coordinate efforts in helping the homeless. The team is planning a one-stop-shopping day in January during which homeless people can connect with representatives from agencies to find help. |
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