An Outpouring of Kindness at the Shelter

There’s no place like home, but the next best thing is a warm place with delicious food and plenty of friendly company. That’s what hundreds of residents are finding at the town’s emergency shelter at Farmington High School.

More than 300 residents have slept at the shelter when freezing temperatures forced them from their homes. And more than 1,800 have checked in at the shelter to take a shower, charge cell phones or get a hot meal.

Check-in is just inside the building’s doors in front of the auditorium. Through the main hallway, folks have settled in chairs, some huddled around charging stations. A group of ladies have set up a game table and are passing the hours with Scrabble and a variety of other games. Most are already friends from the Senior Center and used to the care of Nancy Parent, the town’s social services director, who is running the shelter.

“This group is having a great time playing cards,” Virginia Noveck said. ““I’m having a blast, surrounded by friends."

Noveck has grown children in town but can’t stay with them because they have pets and because she needs electricity to run an oxygen machine.

She’s staying in a “private suite,” one of the school’s classrooms, with Adrienne Bletchman.

“It’s fun with this group all together,” Bletchman said. “We play games, we kibbitz…”

She also said her experience at the shelter has been wonderful.

“Farmington has done an outstanding job, the way this is organized. They’ve been extremely nice and kind and provided everything we’ve needed. They’ve made it easy in a very stressful time.”

The shelter runs on the constant work of town employees — who have been on duty since Saturday – and the labor of volunteers.

Riju Das, a Democratic candidate for constable in Farmington, noted that there has been a real coming together, with officials and candidates from both parties volunteering. State Rep. William Wadsworth has been volunteering at the shelter and working to get state resources. U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy stopped in Tuesday on his tour of the district.

"From Sunday night to now the most impressive thing is the volunteers who have come in without us even asking for help,” said Town Council Chairman Mike Clark, who was helping at the shelter with his wife Sue.

“It’s been wonderful,” Sue Clark said. “People are really rising to the occasion and helping with whatever needs to be done. I had six packages of hot dogs in my freezer and I brought them down and they found beans and made it into a meal.”

Food for the shelter has been pouring in from restaurants and residents alike. In the kitchen Beth and Mark Georges are putting together impressive meals with the donations in the high school cafeteria.

Monday night Beth made tenderloin and New York strip steak when the Grist Mill brought supper. Tuesday night it was fish chowder, hamburgers and hot dogs and fruit salad. That day, Unionville Autobody had brought over 160 hamburgers and sausageburgers and Truffles brought pastries and cake.

“There’s an abundance,” Beth said. “People just want to bring a bag of groceries.”

And kindness has been in abundance too. On Halloween, some 40 or 50 children were staying at the shelter so Recreation Coordinator Geoffrey Porter organized a Halloween parade.

His son, dressed as a vampire, went reverse trick-or-treating through the shelter, giving out candy before leading the parade.