For those who may not be aware, code blue is an emergency weather safety plan that is put in place when temperatures reach a certain degree. Megan Lederhouse, William Mattar outreach coordinator says each code blue shelter is going to have different specifications for that and different services that they offer. She says some of these services may be outreach to help people get off the street in the cold weather, transportation, shelter and a warm meal and it is important for people to know that not every shelter is a code blue shelter. Megan says we want to shine a light on the code blue shelters that we have here in Buffalo and that’s why we want to talk about St. Luke’s Mission of Mercy which is a 100% volunteer and donation based and they are partnering with Restoration Society again this year for code blue services.
Megan says we’ve become familiar with the organization and began supporting them, putting out donation bins for our staff to donate items and we thought wouldn’t it be a great idea to get the community involved. She says especially in the last couple of years with COVID, things have changed for everybody but with the code blue organizations, when there were mass shutdowns and government directives to shelter in place in the beginning of COVID, this caused a higher demand for food among the poor and just to give an example, St. Luke’s use to serve about 300 meals a day, they are now serving about 1,100 meals a day. They are in need of our help, in need of donations, and volunteers and we just wanted to that raise awareness and give people an easy way by going to our website to support their efforts and we have added a donation link right to our website for St. Luke’s and you will find more information. So maybe you aren’t able to make a monetary donation, maybe you want to volunteer your time or maybe you want to donate some items. Megan says food is in high demand right now for the code blue shelters. She says donating a couple boxes of cereal, cans of soup or bottles of water and also think winter clothing if you can donate new hats, gloves, scarves, there are so many ways you can help.
For more information go to WilliamMattar.com/codeblue
716-444-4444.
