Kendall County PADS Starts Second Season

More than 500 volunteers helped Kendall County Public Action to Deliver Shelter last year provide safe and temporary shelter to 56 adults and 13 children who were struggling through the winter months without homes of their own.

This year, the local PADS group hopes to build on this momentum as it begins on Oct. 16 its second season of providing temporary shelter to homeless adults and children. To do this, though, the organization needs even more volunteers than those who stepped up for PADS in its inagural season last year.

Those who do volunteer at one of the seven churches in Kendall County that serve as PADS shelter locations might be surprised at how rewarding the work is, said Anne Engelhardt, director of the local PADS organization.

"Without exception, those volunteers who filled our our evaluation forms at the end of last year said that this work gave them a better understanding of what homelessness is," Engelhardt said. "They appreciated having the experience. They said that their lives were blessed by having been a part of this. They called their volunteer work a life-changing experience."

Last year, PADS provided temporary shelter in a church every night of the week for 26 weeks. On only two of these nights did no homeless people attend.

This year, seven Kendall County churches will be providing overnight shelter for the homeless, each taking a different night of the week.

PADS locations in operation this year are:

Mondays:
Tuesday: United Methodist Church of Plano
Wednesdays: Harvest Baptist Church in Oswego
Thursdays: in Yorkville
Fridays: Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist in Oswego
Saturdays: St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Montgomery
Sundays: in Yorkville

Each location is open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on their designated night. Each site relies on teams of volunteers. These volunteers set up the churches for the evening, register guests, serve meals and pack lunches, which guests take with them when they leave in the morning.

Engelhardt said that PADS is particularly in need of volunteers for the second and third shifts of shelter duty. Second shift runs from 9:45 p.m. until 3 a.m. while third shift runs from 2:45 a.m. until 7:30 a.m. Third shift includes 30 minutes of clean-up time after guests leave the shelters at 7 a.m. PADS' goal is to have two men and two women volunteering at all times at all shelters.

With today's challenging economy, it's not surprising that many residents in Kendall County have lost their homes.

"We've seen that homeless people are people just like us," Engelhardt said. "For various reasons, they have found themselves in the situation of not having a home. Sometimes they might have lost a job. There might have been a divorce in the family. We've seen people who have just come out of military service and have no place to go. There are a lot of different circumstances that lead people to homelessness."

The Kendall County PADS will operate its shelters from its Oct. 16 start date through the middle of April, providing its guests relief fom the coldest nights of the year.

There is little doubt that homelessness is a problem in Kendall County. Engelhardt said that last year, 193 kindergarten through 12th-grade students enrolled in Kendall County public schools were homeless. This year, at the end of the first two months of the academic year, 89 children in county public schools are without a home.

For more information on Kendall County PADS and to volunteer with the organization or provide it a monetary donation, visit the organization's Web site or Facebook page.