Together we can end homelessness, hunger

Before the annual County Cutts fireworks show in Palmer Saturday night at 7:18 p.m., there is another more somber event that folks should dress warm and plan to attend.

Advocates for homeless youth in the Mat-Su Valley have organized a candlelight vigil at 7 p.m., Saturday to remind us that we are blessed to have warm homes, cozy beds and lots to eat, and that those blessings come with an inherent responsibility to help others.

The candlelight vigil is just one element of a multi-faceted local effort to meet the real-life needs of a growing number of homeless children, teens and adults who live in the Mat-Su Valley.

Pause Thursday while the majority of Valley residents are bellied up to a Thanksgiving feast celebrating the arrival of those early Colonists on this continent to remember those of us who are cold, homeless and hungry on this holiday.

Thanks to the generosity of their neighbors who gave food to local food pantries, some families in our community will receive food baskets with all the trimmings to make their own feasts.

For homeless families, frozen turkeys and ready-to-bake rolls pose their own set of challenges. While one can roast a marshmallow over a campfire, it’s a tougher trick to brown a turkey or bake rolls that way.

In the past year we’ve written a lot about homelessness, especially about homeless teens and their struggles to complete their education while living under bridges and in swamps.

We’d like to think those stories and photos are part of what has fired up our community to form a new nonprofit called Mat-Su Youth Housing, or MY HOUSE. It’s this boots-on-the-ground group that has organized the candlelight vigil Saturday.

MY HOUSE member Michael Carson said there are about 500 students in the Mat-Su Borough School District who don’t have a regular place to stay. Of that group, another 100 to 150 are homeless teens not in the care of an adult or guardian, he said. When school is in session, homeless students receive hot breakfast and lunch, but during Thanksgiving and Christmas break, they often go hungry, according to Burchell High life coach and MYHOUSE founding member Michelle Overstreet.

Elsewhere in the community, groups like St. David’s Episcopal Church have partnered with MYHOUSE to organize winter clothing drives and have opened their doors all day on Sundays so people who lack housing have a safe, comfortable place to warm up.

Carson said the church also is a stop on the MASCOT bus route leaving from the Carrs Mall parking lot in Wasilla. It’s not just churches, either. We’re pleased to see community service organizations like Kiwanis and Rotary join the fray.

For businesses, service organizations, church communities or individuals who want to help, one of the easiest ways to get involved is by donating food to a local food pantry, Carson said.

People who want to get more involved are invited to attend the MYHOUSE group’s monthly meetings at 10 a.m., on the first Thursday of every month at Wasilla Bible Church, off the Parks Highway behind Burchell High School. The next meeting is Dec. 1.

“The word is starting to get out,” Carson said. “We are starting to get people who are fired up to do something.”

There is another opportunity to get involved on Dec. 13 when the Mat-Su Coalition on Housing and Homelessness will host an all-day meeting in Wasilla at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center.

Working together can extinguish homelessness and hunger in the Mat-Su Valley.