Note—This post is based on my remarks yesterday at a McHenry County College Event sponsored by the Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) and coordinated by Blossom Broussard, a young member of Tree of Life Congregation. It presents an opportunity to explain the Compassion for Campers program and introduce it to those who might not be aware of our work.
Compassion for Campers, the organization that supplies camping gear, survival needs, health and personal hygiene supplies, and non-perishable food, meets at the Community Resource Days on the first and third Friday of every month from 10 am to 2 pm. C4C is one of over 25 agencies at the Willow Friendship Center, 100 South Main Street in Crystal Lake who serve the unhoused and at risk community. Our next distribution is this Friday, October 20, and then Friday, November 3. Please come and see what we do.
Like most of America, McHenry County is in the midst of a growing crisis of homelessness and housing insecurity. In addition to the familiar chronic unhoused who can be seen in every community, many are being displaced for the first time due to job loss, medical expenses, mental health crisis, divorce or death of a spouse or life partner, astronomically soaring rents and evictions, and mortgage foreclosures. These people including more women than ever before, families with children, veterans, and LGBTQ youth rejected by their families are often stunned by a situation they never expected to find themselves in.
Many are forced to camp or sleep in vehicles for the first time. Others bounce between couch surfing and sleeping in garages, unheated or abandoned buildings, and even storage lockers. Some have some kind of income like Social Security, disability payments, veteran benefits, or forms of public assistance with which they can get a hotel room until the money runs out and they are back on the street.
Many of these people have jobs, but not enough income to secure housing. And that employment is threatened by the chaos of their lives, especially if they lose their cars or access to reliable transportation.
At our twice monthly distributions at Community Resource Days at Willow Church in Crystal Lake, we are now serving 35-40 adult individuals each week and numbers have been steadily increasing. With the coming of Fall and Winter looming, warm gear is essential.
We are very grateful for Willow Crystal Lake and its many volunteers for hosting Community Resource Days the first four Fridays of every month. If there is a fifth Friday, resources and training are offered to participating organizations, their staffs, and volunteers. More than 25 agencies and organizations participate offering housing assistance, employment services, community health clinics, mental health services, substance abuse and safe user services, veteran aid, women’s and domestic violence shelters and services, and aid through organizations like the Salvation Army and St. Vincint DePaul Societies. In addition, Boost Mobil offers free cell phones—an absolute essential these days, and there are free haircuts, showers, and laundry facilities available. Willow maintains a supply of clean clothing. A nutritious lunch is provided by volunteers. Everyone works cooperatively to help clients navigate the requirements of all these services.
Compassion for Campers is often the first stop and the one that meets the most urgent immediate needs of those in crisis. Both our clients and other participating agencies say our work is vital and literally lifesaving. We offer our equipment and supplies for free to all who need assistance. We do not screen, demand any kind of documentation, or make anyone jump through often difficult bureaucratic hoops to be served. We strive to treat all with dignity and respect and take time to listen to what they need to share.
We recognize that providing camping gear is the worst solution to the crisis. What is needed instead is the adoption of a housing first policy that puts people almost immediately in housing. In places where this has been adopted, it has saved taxpayers thousands of dollars for each placement in public assistance and the fallout problems like health emergencies and criminal prosecutions. Those with a stable address can much more easily secure employment, receive payment of benefits, establish credit, and provide a stable home for their families. But resistance to that is strong among the many who see homelessness and poverty as a moral failing and demand proof that the recipients that they are worthy. Until then Compassion for Campers provides what is often an essential and even lifesaving service.
Compassion for Campers is funded by donations from Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation in McHenry and its members, some small grants, donations from churches and other religious organizations, and generous donations from the general public. We also accept some material donations of clean, like new gear and some clothing items, but ask that donors contact us to find out what we need and can use. Our storage and transportation capacities are limited.
Contributions to support Compassion for Campers can be made by sending a check made out to Tree of Life UU Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road, McHenry, IL 60050 with Compassion for Campers on the memo line or on line a https://treeoflifeuu.breezechms.com/give/online and using the drop down menu to designate Compassion for Campers. Donations are placed in a dedicated fund and not used for any other purpose. Tree of Life also donates all the administrative expenses of the program so 100% of all donations go directly to client assistance.
In addition, thanks to Blossom Broussard, bins for donations of needed items were placed here at MCC and will be in the Starbucks on the Square in Woodstock for the rest of October. A list of needed items is in the brochure available today. In addition to that for the winter months we can use warm gloves, caps, scarfs, and heavy socks for men and women. But please, no hotel size hygiene samples and no sleeping bags and tents that are not in like-new condition and in their original compression bags or carrying cases.
The Story of Compassion for Camp
This short video about Compassion for Campers was made during the Coronavirus epidemic and our first days at the Willow Creek events.
More than ten years ago Lisa Jacobsen and Sue Rekenthaler, long-time volunteers at the PADS overnight shelter at what was then the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Woodstock and with other services to the homeless became concerned about what happened to their friends and clients when the seasonal church shelters closed May through September. They learned that many camped out and others slept in cars or couch surfed. Many had no reliable shelter once benefits like Social Security, disability, or unemployment ran out to pay for motel rooms.
Bob Tirk, another long-time volunteer who cooked breakfasts and weekly lunches at a Woodstock day site suggested continuing to feed the clients over the summer.
They solicited donations of supplies like mosquito spray, sun lotion, non-perishable food, and personal hygiene items from members of the Congregation and with a little seed money from the church’s Social Justice Committee launched Compassion for Campers.
Weekly lunches and distributions of camping gear and supplies were held on Mondays on the grounds of the PADS office on Kishwaukee Valley Road in Woodstock. Pioneer Center provided shuttle bus service to the site from area Metra Stations and some known campsites.
The lunches and volunteers were provided by congregation committees and groups as well as other church communities and organizations like a 4H Club and Rotary Club. Almost as important as the gear and food was the fellowship. Volunteers and clients sat down together to eat and socialize. Many clients said it was one of the few times they felt seen, heard from, and valued as individuals rather than nuisances.
The system worked well until the Coronavirus pandemic hit in March of 2020 which not only closed the church shelters—it was going to be the last season for those anyway—but the PADS facility on Kishwaukee and the new permanent shelter site in McHenry which was getting ready to open. All social service agencies shut down personal services and the Pioneer Center bus was suspended. Homeless clients including long time summer campers and those who had never done so were suddenly locked out of everything with no time to prepare.
Compassion for Campers shifted gears to set up distribution of supplies in the parking lots of churches in Crystal Lake, McHenry, and Woodstock. When cold weather set in the distributions were shifted monthly to sites that could accommodate indoor distribution following strict Covid 19 precautions. One of those sites was Warp Corp, 114 Benton Street in Woodstock, which already was serving some homeless. Compassion for Campers began to keep Warp Corp supplied with gear which could be available daily on a walk-in basis.
During the dire and extended cold and snow emergency in February 2021 Compassion for Campers was able to donate $4000 to supplement emergency hotel accommodations from Federal funds available to the County.
The Community Empowerment Shower event that June at Willow Crystal Lake offered comprehensive, one-stop services and an opportunity to more effectively reach and serve our clients. The cooperative efforts of many organizations and social service agencies brought out many of our unhoused friends and neighbors for a wide variety of services. Compassion for Campers served many more clients with gear and supplies than we did at any other distribution since the Coronavirus pandemic began. Now called the Community Resource Days, Compassion for Campers distributions are now held there on the first and third Fridays of every month from 10 am to 2 pm.
Due to the success of the program Compassion for Campers suspended our rotating church site distributions and supplying Warp Corps. to participate in this exciting new collaborative effort.
And we look forward to adapting to continuing changes in need.
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