Reaching out to those in the cold
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The deep cold is coming back and a wind chill warning is in effect. Environment Canada says the wind chills are expected to be in the minus 30 to 35 range Monday night and into Tuesday morning. This warning affects a lot of communities including Norfolk, Dunnville, Haldimand, Hamilton, Halton and Toronto. However, St. Catharines and the rest of the Niagara Region lucked out this time; there’s no warning there. As public health officials warn people to limit their time spent outside during the cold, the Salvation Army has been out preparing for the drop in temperatures.
Rebecca and John is one of three locations where the Salvation Army’s soup truck will be making stops Monday evening. Like every night they’ll be serving coffee, hot chocolate and soup to help those in need. The truck will be out from about 8 Monday night until 11. But the Salvation Army says the last time we saw temperatures dip this low, which was a couple of weeks ago, they had less people come out because it was just too cold. They had about 60 people where they normally serve about 150 in an evening. They’ve opened their booth centre to anyone in need of shelter. And by 4 in afternoon, there were only about 4 beds left. But they do have a plan in place to make sure nobody is left outside in these frigid temperatures.
Dan Millar is with the Salvation Army: “At the same time we don’t leave anybody out in the cold so we’ll call around to the other shelters like The Good Shepherd, Mission Services and find out who has beds and we direct them there. If those are full, then we do have mattresses that we do put on the floor and have an overflow.”
If you do see someone out in the cold who looks like they need assistance you can call the Salvation Army and they’ll send somebody down to help them find somewhere warm to stay Monday night.
