…a volunteer announces loudly. Another volunteer swings open the doors of the Street Outreach van, while someone else is already praying with a lady who’s been dealing with a foot injury.
People gather around the bright orange van as coffee is poured, and conversations begin. There’s laughter, along with those familiar awkward silences as strangers slowly get to know one another.
“Can I get you another cup of coffee?”
“How have you been? I haven’t seen you for a few weeks.”
It sounds a lot like the buzz you’d hear inside a church on Sunday morning, but today is Tuesday afternoon, and the volunteers are at a homeless encampment.
For over a year, teams from five local churches have been partnering with Pathway Ministries to reach out to men and women living in encampments. This ministry has provided hundreds of hygiene kits, thousands of bus passes, and more cups of coffee than we can count—all with the goal of building relationships with unsheltered people in Central Illinois.
The goal of street outreach is not to empower people to stay on the streets, but to care for them by first getting to know them on a personal level, and second, showing them available resources. We’ve seen people leave encampments and find support at Pathway Ministries, as well as other local agencies like the Dream Center and the Salvation Army.
This ministry is also constantly evolving to meet the challenges posed by changing ordinances on public camping. But relationships can be built anywhere: on a street corner where someone is asking for money, in an encampment tucked away from the road, or in a motel where people are temporarily sheltered.
The volunteers pack up, hop back into the van, and share stories about the conversations they had. As they head to their next encampment, they pass two people on a street corner. The little orange van quickly makes a U-turn, and everyone gets out to connect with this couple, offering prayer and support to people when they need it most.
You can see firsthand what street outreach looks like in the video below.
