Brothers and Mothers Homeless Outreach
Andrew Anderson, Grantee
On Friday nights, beginning at 5 o’clock, many of the homeless men, women, and children of San Luis Obispo begin to arrive at the Maxine Lewis Memorial Shelter. They bear on their shoulders not only their belongings, but also a day dripping with difficulties of various shapes and sizes. The question, “How was your day?” is almost always met with uncomfortable stares, since most of these precious people didn’t have that great of a day. 
Having worked as a case manager with the homeless of SLO for the previous five years, I had constantly wondered, thought, talked, and read about some way that I could bring a bit of light, relief, and comfort to this group of people as they arrived at the homeless shelter. My ambitions were not necessarily to end homelessness, but more along the lines of providing a bit of hospitality, human dignity, and warmth in an otherwise bleak situation.
Starting with an old 1970 Volkswagen bus and a love for coffee, I started serving hot coffee out of my bus at the entrance to the shelter on Friday nights. Our grassroots outreach, affectionately named Brothers & Mothers, has been growing our hospitality and caring efforts for almost a year now. We set up at 4:30 pm to serve and spend time with the homeless from 5-8:30pm. Thanks to Do Good Grants, this simple goal of putting a cup of highest quality, hot coffee in the hands of my homeless friends has been accomplished.
Every Friday night, I and one or two of my volunteers serve about 50 cups of hot coffee.. We pass out small stuffed animals to the homeless children, and we also pass out warm, thick socks when we have them. After doing this outreach weekly for about a year, there now exists a solid camaraderie between us and the homeless – many substantial and meaningful conversations are taking place in the context of friendship, a hot cup of coffee, and a VW bus. The community that seemed like an us-and-them is now a community of mutual respect and consideration.
We are excited to push into new areas of service in 2017. Entailed in these are to hopefully expand to another day of outreach during the week, strengthen our partnership with CAP SLO homeless services, expand our financial and people support base, become a 501(c)(3), launch a website, and basically work hard to let the homeless of SLO know that they are valuable, priceless individuals.
We thank Do Good Grants for investing in Brothers & Mothers. Through us, that investment is stretching to those on the streets who most need your support.