December 25, 2023
By: Dwayne Page
Helping the Homeless in DeKalb County!
A non-profit organization called “Live and Let Live” has been formed made up of local community volunteers whose goal is to help the homeless by providing emergency shelter especially during cold weather where they can get rest, take showers, launder clothing, and access other necessities.
Although the group began meeting and planning five years ago, it only became a non-profit charitable organization last year.
“The group has been meeting periodically for five years but became a corporation in April 2022,” said Gina Arnold, Live and Let Live Board Member. “At that point when we received our charitable non-profit status, they were gracious enough to back date it from the time of its incorporation”.
According to Arnold, statistics show that homelessness is an issue in DeKalb County. “At this time, our local homeless census has identified over 60 individuals that are living without shelter in our area. Our new census is coming up soon and at that time we may be able to identify more people and get a more accurate count,” said Arnold.
“That census count is very important because when we do the count for our county, it gets us more funding into our county to help with the homeless,” added board member Karen Phillips.
Dean Adcock, another board member explained how “Live and Let Live” got its start.
“There was one person who came back to town that was homeless and we began trying to help this one person and as we began trying to help him, we found there were more people who were homeless. There was much more need than what we had imagined there was so that turned into this. Unless you get involved in something like this, you don’t see that there are more people homeless than most people realize,” Adcock explained. “We have people sleeping under bridges right now. We know where a lady is sleeping in a car. There is one place I know where a man, woman, and child are sleeping in a tent in someone’s lawn. Our goal with this mission is to help people who need help,” said Adcock.
Board Chairman Royce Curtis said the group’s ultimate plan is to establish a community shelter modeled after “Compassionate Hands in Lebanon ”.
“This would not be a permanent home. It would be a part time shelter for a couple of days a week. We would like to provide showers, some laundry service, and maybe some meals. In the winter time when it gets cold we would like to have the shelter open at night to give them a warm place to sleep,” said Curtis.
“This would be ongoing but the model in the summer would look a little different in that it would be open every other day or three days a week. That opens it up to showers, laundry service, and meals. That would be a daytime opening to get them out of the heat and a place to rest during the day,” added Arnold.
“We would also like to eventually be able to offer or put them in touch with social service resources if they want to get away from living a homeless lifestyle in order to help get them back on their feet,” said Curtis.
A location in Smithville has already been identified as a possible shelter.
“Tyler Cantrell and his family have been so gracious to allow us to rent a space at the back of his business, Vitality Fit at 656-B West Broad Street. We know we will use that facility in some way. We just don’t know yet if it will check all the boxes for everything we are required to have but we as a group have leased that space and Tyler is partnering with us. God is working in his heart and this whole endeavor to allow us to lease that space for a six month period of time to see how we might be able to transform that for our first shelter space,” said Arnold.
Live and Let Live may begin fundraising efforts to further it’s mission now that it has obtained non-profit status.
“We can now go to local organizations, charities, churches, etc and tell them about our desire and hopefully solicit some funds and volunteers to get this functional,” Arnold said. “We are seeking like-minded individuals to reach out a caring hand in a variety of ways. We are not asking the community to fully fund this. We do plan to write grants but we really desire the partnership between churches, businesses, and individuals in service giving,” she continued.
“We would like to come to your church and speak with your church groups,” Arnold said. “If you would allow us to come on a Wednesday night, Sunday night, or even Sunday morning we would like to visit you. We are preparing a presentation so that we can give a clear communication of what we are doing and what our mission is to hopefully elicit volunteers for the effort”.
“Compassionate Hands in Lebanon is affiliated with more than 20 churches there that bring in meals for the homeless. They have it set up to where one church will bring in a meal at a given time and then another church will provide a meal at a later time. We would like to have churches here get involved and help us that way too,” said Adcock.
“We need donations and we will need supplies as well as a list of churches and individuals who are willing to assist and volunteer time as we begin to put this into place because there are things we need to further this mission. If we are going to help, we must have what we need to be able to reach out to help,” said Curtis.
While the organization’s effort is non-denominational, Arnold said there is a ministry and it will be in the form of love shown to the homeless.
“If we want to keep Christ in Christmas, we are going to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the stranger and the unwanted child, care for the ill, and love our enemies. There will not be an organized religious component to this ministry at this time. The Compassionate Hands model has a devotion before the meals they serve. It’s a short devotion but most of the ministry is in the love that is shown. Its just by example,” said Arnold.
If you would like to help or get more information contact Dean Adcock at 931-409-5146, Lillie Vaughn at 931-265-3933, or Gina Arnold at 615-464-3047 or email liveandletlivetn@gmail.com.
You are also invited to the monthly Live and Let Live Board meetings on the third Saturday of each month. The next meeting will be December 30 at 10 a.m. at 656-B West Broad Street, Smithville.
Members of the Live and Let Live Board are Chairman Royce Curtis, Vice Chairman Lillie Vaughn Johnson, Secretary Nikki Lunsford, Treasurer Lois Radar, and members Dean Adcock, Anne Morse Adcock, David Lunsford, Karen Phillips, Gina Arnold, Dennis Arnold, and Susan Brown.