WELCOME FROM HAYWOOD STREET:


UPDATES:


Gratitude goes out this week to partner restaurant
Rocky’s Hot Chicken Shack who brought comfort food and community
to the Downtown Welcome Table.
We are constantly amazed by local companies who gift our community
with their incredible products. For over two months now, Roots has been
|donating 40 pounds of hummus, every week, to the Welcome Table —
making the first course of the Wednesday meals extra special and delicious.
A big shout out to BOMBAS who, this week, donated 3,000 pairs of their highest
quality socks to the Haywood Street clothing closet!
Registration for this year’s Golf For Awareness is now open! More…

ANNOUNCEMENTS:


1. New Sunday schedule is now in effect!
– Welcome Table meal: 8am-10am
– Clothing closet: 8am-10am
– Worship: 11 am

2. A farewell to Steven. More…

3. We have multiple job openings with various start dates this summer. Please check out the new listings on our Employment web page.

4. August 21-22: A Welcoming Table — Ministry WITH Experiential Training Event. More…

5. The Haywood Street Fresco is in full swing! Remember you can stop in on your lunch hour (Tuesdays and Thursdays, anytime between 11-1) and watch the artists at work. And if you haven’t yet reserved your seats for “Imagine!”, do so today!


COMPANION CORNER:


For more information about any of the following, please contact Hannah, Haywood St. Companion Coordinator, at hannah@haywoodstreet.org or 828.575.2477 [ext. 106].

Please join us for a pot luck lunch in the Hospitality Room to help celebrate Hannah and Patrick and their new home! Tuesday, July 16 at 12:30 PM. Bring a dish to share!

Welcome Table:
Food prep & information sheet

Clothing Closet:

– Prep: 10AM – 12PM Tuesday and Thursdays
– In need of folks to pick up dirty laundry during prep days & times.

Garden:
– Vegetable gardening with Joan: Tuesdays 6:00 pm – dusk & Wednesdays 10-12.
– Flower gardening with Robert Thursday 9-12

Respite: 
– August dates are up on Mealtrain! Click here to access.

Campus:
– Help keep our campus clean! Come help pick up trash inside or outside of the church: Sunday through Thursday 8AM – 3PM. Supplies can be picked up in office 9 during the designated days/times, or bring your own gloves and trash bags and swing by at your convenience.


Make a gift to Haywood St.

A HAYWOOD STREET REFLECTION FROM: BROOK

Haywood Street is a ministry dedicated to those on the margins, but how do you properly identify the marginalized? Me and this question have spent some good time in the ring lately.

A couple weeks after the passing of my fiancé, I walked into the Haywood Street Hospitality Room and came upon our friend Angela. I’ve written about Angela before – about her struggles with chronic addiction and homelessness. On this day though, Angela was housed, sober, employed, stable. As we locked eyes, she began to cry. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “You know, so many of us show up here every week because we’re visibly broken and we’re tired and we’re hungry. But what makes me real sad is that we don’t stop and think about what you’re going through. And the other staff. And everyone who appears to have it all together. I can’t imagine how you are feeling right now and I’m so sorry for your loss.” And just like that, I realized how I did feel at that moment – like a worn out, widowed, devastated human. Like a deflated balloon and a bag of bricks. I felt like a sucker, up against the farthest wall of the farthest margin, on the farthest planet of the farthest galaxy. Marginalized would have felt like an upgrade.

When I stop long enough to listen, I hear it all. Housed women who would give up their roof just to stop being beaten beneath it. Successful men re-financing their stuff to pay out of pocket rehab bills. Folks who can’t keep their hands off drugs, their bodies out of prostitution, their spot in a shelter. There are, without a doubt, friends who seem subjected to a life sentence on the margins. And then there’s everyone else. Slipping in, slipping out. And what seems most valuable to know, is that the person struggling at the back of the line doesn’t always look the part. She might have a white strip smile. She may wear real nice shoes. And if she’s quiet enough, she may never even be identified as a left of the red line, back of the pack type gal.

For more faces & stories from our Congregation, click here.