A community warming center will open for public use when temperatures drop below 30 degrees this winter.
Volunteers will open the warming center located at the left side entrance of the Gilmer County Civic Center, 1561 South Main Street, at 5 p.m. on days when temperatures are expected to dip into that range.
The warming center is open to anyone who needs temporary shelter from the cold, but it closes if nobody shows up by 8 p.m. Those who come can stay until 7 a.m. the next morning.
“Everybody comes in through the side door on the side of the Civic Center where the pickleball courts are located. (When) people come in, we acclimate them to the rules. If they have pets, (the pets) have to be crated immediately,” said volunteer team coordinator Sandy Williams. “We have linens, cots and hygiene supplies. We also feed them a meal. It’s lights out by 10 o’clock, and they have to be up by 6 the next morning to leave by 7 a.m. A lot of times, we’ll send a bag of nonperishable food from the food pantry with them when they leave.”
Williams said, last year, the warming center initially opened on days when it was 32 degrees or less outside, but no one really started coming until the temperature dropped to 30 or below.
“Those who (came) were all adults, both men and women. There were about seven people who showed up pretty consistently once the word got out,” she added. “We did not have any children. If we do have families or mothers or fathers with children, we will put them in a separate area. Right now, we put the women on the left side of the gym and the men on the right side of the gym. If we had a family, we would have a place designated for them to stay.”
Williams said there are more people in Gilmer who could use the center, but haven’t done so yet.
“There are a lot of people who live in their cars, and we think there’s a lot of other people out there, but most of them don’t want to be found. They want to be independent,” she added.
This year, the warming center team has been able to accumulate additional volunteers to run the center, which is overseen by the New Beginnings transitional housing program. The last month in which it usually opens is March, noted Williams.
“We are an arm of New Beginnings, and under their 501(c)(3), but we’re a different group. We sometimes send transitional living clients to them,” she added. “The way we’ve set it up this year is a little different (than last year). New Beginnings is a coalition of local churches, and we’ve divided up into four teams. Most of them represent churches, and there are other volunteers in the community in these groups. We have more volunteers this year than ever, but we can always use more. A couple of our committees are still short.”
The four volunteer groups will alternate operating the warming center for a week at a time each month. “We set it up this way because last year, it just wore the same people out doing it over and over,” said Williams.
Warming center openings will be announced on these Facebook pages: Gilmer County Public Safety, Gilmer Family Connection, Homeless in Ellijay and Ellijay & East Ellijay.
Although the center is not a homeless shelter, Williams said it’s now listed on Shelter App (a mobile app that shows nationwide homeless resources and services) to show that there’s a temporary place of respite from the winter elements in Gilmer County.
“We’re not a shelter, and we operate under the parameters the city has set for us,” she added. “A lot of homeless people do use that app, but if they look at it, they see no services between here and Chattanooga. (That’s why) we will list the resources we have on there to help people, even if we aren’t a shelter.”
Transportation to the warming center can be arranged on days it opens by calling 706-515-5146. The Church of Christ has a committee to provide transportation, Williams noted.
“We also need volunteers from the community to pick people up and bring them to the warming center. If we know that they’re coming, we will stay open until they get there,” she added.