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Community Corner

First Church Students Help The Homeless

As a way to remind the public of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week from November 16th-24th, the middle school children of First Church of Christ, Congregational, 1652, are building a Tent City in front of the church on Main Street in Farmington. They will sleep there overnight on Saturday, November 16th to help bring attention to the homeless in our greater community.

 

Last year, these middle school students, ages 11 to 13, became part of a national grassroots effort to provide emergency sleeping bags to the homeless through the “Ugly Quilt” project.  As an ongoing commitment, the students have continued to collect old bedspreads, comforters, and draperies throughout the year, pieced the fabrics together, hand quilted, and sewed them into sleeping bags. These will then be distributed to those in need free-of-charge. These “Ugly Quilts,” so named because of the mismatched fabrics used to make them, may be the only thing between a homeless individual and the cold ground. It is estimated that tens of thousands of these mismatched, handmade sleeping bags have been distributed by different church and community groups throughout the country.

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When these young students delivered their sleeping bags last year to the Friendship Center, a shelter in New Britain, they were moved by the proximity of the shelter to Farmington and the fact that the shelter has to turn people away. On the way home, the discussion turned to, "What more can we do?"

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This year the group will use cardboard, tarps, and old tents to build their own shelter for the evening of November 16th. They will take turns sleeping in the Ugly Quilts they made. It will be cold; it will be uncomfortable. As part of their Tent City, they will hold a coat and canned food drive. Additionally, these middle school students will make meals to be distributed to the homeless and work in the Farmington Food Pantry. At 11:00 p.m., they will hold a prayer service. They hope the spectacle of their Tent City will encourage passersby to donate and, more importantly, think about the homeless in these upcoming cold winter months.

 

Donations of coats or canned food may be dropped off at Tent City on Saturday November 16th from 5:30 p.m. until 12:00 noon on Sunday November 17th, or during the following week at the Church’s Amistad Hall from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For further information, visit the church website at www.firstchurch1652.org.

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