Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The past several weeks have seen temperatures drop to freezing and below, accompanied by rain over the weekend. This harsh winter weather is forecasted to continue for another week, at the least. While these temperatures are uncomfortable and an annoyance to most people, they are much more serious for those who find themselves homeless.

Always willing to lend a helping hand, the Salvation Army has begun to distribute blankets for those in need this time of year.

“We typically do the blankets when we know that we’re gonna have weather in the 20s,” Salvation Army Director Merreann McDonald stated. “We’ll put blankets on the rails, as long as we feel like we need to, especially two or three-day stints like this, where the weather just doesn’t give a reprieve.”

The recent rains forced the SA to temporarily bring the blankets back inside to keep them dry.

“And, unfortunately for those people that are sleeping outside,” McDonald continued, “they don’t have a way to keep their stuff dry. So you can just imagine how miserable those conditions are for those people… It just makes you really hurt for those people, regardless of why they’re in that situation.”

Without any shelter for the Army to offer, she described their blanket supply efforts as “the only call to action that we feel like we can do, but we want to do something.”

The Salvation Army is continuing to accept donations of blankets, coats, mittens, gloves and other similar items at this time. They can be left on/beside the railing at the side of the Salvation Army building, located at 600 S Scott Street.