Yesterday [Sunday, December 11], the Greater Falls Warming Shelter [GFWS] sent the message below to its volunteers and posted it on its Facebook page. A Hundred Nights is planning to open a shelter Dec. 20 in the Athens pizza site. We are supporting their efforts by offering our volunteers the opportunity to volunteer with AHN. We are continuing with our appeal to the Environmental Commission and will take over the shelter when/if we receive a favorable ruling. I suggest you contact Don Primrose directly (his #no. is below) for further info. Thanks for your interest.
"A brief update on the opening of the Warming Shelter:
1.) After the Zoning Board's split decision on November 22, the Board met and decided to appeal the (non)decision. The appeal goes before the state's Environmental Division which currently has only one sitting judge. He will schedule a hearing during which all 'interested parties' can give testimony. Once the judge renders a decision, that dec...ision can be appealed & the case would go before the Vermont Supreme Court. We have started that process.
2.) In the meantime, 100 Nights Inc., the organization which opened the winter shelter in Keene, approached us and informed us that they wanted to open a shelter in BF under their organization. They have a similar set up & would open this shelter in the same location. The difference is that they would apply for a 'temporary' permit & the application would be separate from ours. They would hope to have the shelter open from Dec 21 to March 29 (100 days) and they would allow us to take over if our appeal was granted. They also were quite frank that they would be looking to our volunteers to staff the shelter.
The 100 Nights are already planning trainings: the first 2 dates are Sunday, 12/11 at Our Place from 12-2 and the next one would be Sunday, 12/18 from 10-noon. GFWS volunteers who have already been trained would need to go through 100 Nights' training. The 100 Nights people have asked for our volunteer list and their contact information so if you do not want that information to go to 100 Nights Inc. please respond let us know immediately.
Contact information for the 100 Nights people are Don Primrose, who is spear-heading the effort, at (603) 313-3229 and Deb Chambers who is the Shelter manager, at (603) 313-5807. They have let us know that anyone is free to contact them with questions.
100 Nights Inc is also planning a candlelight vigil for the homeless on December 20th here in BF. Stay tuned on that one...
To clarify: the GFWS Board supports the shore-term solution presented by 100 Nights Inc but we are a separate entity and will continue to be so. This is an opportunity -- while awaiting the appeal decision -- to shelter people in a timely way."