Community
Help the Homeless Walks Take DC by Storm
By Seth Manfield, Friendship Place Intern
When fall comes around, it’s Help the Homeless season, a time when people of all ages come together to make a lasting impact in our community. Here at Friendship Place, it means it’s time to organize our annual Help the Homeless Community Walks. Participating in a walk is a fun and easy way of giving back to the community.
This year, Rochambeau French International School, Washington National Cathedral, Sheridan School, Horace Mann School, Powell Elementary School, St. David’s Episcopal Church, Church of the Pilgrims and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church each held Community Walks to benefit Friendship Place. Children, teachers, parents and congregation members all enthusiastically came together to show their support for our mission.
We held our own Community Walk here at Friendship Place, too, on a chilly October afternoon, wearing our Help the Homeless t-shirts and walking down Wisconsin Avenue from our Welcome Center. You could hear cars honking their horns, their drivers cheering loudly as they passed us holding up our signs. Their warm response illustrates the importance of the walks to the community. Not only do the walks raise money for the homeless, but they also create a greater awareness of the presence of homelessness in the D.C. area.
We’re looking forward to building stronger ties with the community through these Help the Homeless Walks and other educational events in 2014. Any type of organization can participate. If you’d like to schedule an educational event around homelessness at your school, workplace, organization, or congregation, please let us know! For more information, contact: Zachary Tobler – 202.431.7567- ztobler@friendshipplace.org
