Last week, Fr. Guy Blair, SCJ, was the featured speaker at the 20th anniversary commemoration of St. John’s Ministries. The social service outreach program got its start in 2005 when Fr. Guy, then pastor of St. John the Evangelist parish in Green Bay, offered use of the parish gymnasium as a temporary homeless shelter.
The shelter was established to “provide nighttime shelter, food and clothing from November to May,” said Fr. Guy. “I could not have imagined the unfolding of this idea in the creative and wholistic approach by a new generation of young and energetic people. The shelter now includes a second building which operates as a year-round shelter for women and a third building (a creative renovation of an abandoned church in downtown Green Bay) as a daytime drop-in center with dining, laundry and offices facilities.”
Fr. Guy spoke about how “homelessness” is much in the news. “The term has changed to ‘unhoused’ but the problems remain the same. We do not see ‘homelessness’ walking the streets; homeless is a person in dire straits…
“The staff and volunteers of St John the Evangelist Homeless shelter offer the compassion and goodwill of human beings to human beings in need. Every meal served, every hand extended in care speaks to a deeper truth, that ‘whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, that you have done for me.’”
