See Beautiful Grant Applicant: St. Anne Center's Lantern House

The feature below is brought to you by Lantern House, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. 

To learn more about Lantern House, please visit their website page: here.

Sharing meals, warmth, and hope

It was crisp but sunny as all the Lantern House staff pitched in to decorate and stack gifts for our annual Lantern House Christmas party. A twelve-foot tree was lit in the corner of our St. Anne’s Soup Kitchen and the scent of roasted ham and stuffing filled the room. Everything looked cheerful and excitement truly buzzed when we mentioned Santa’s impending visit to children at the shelter.

I, on the other hand, was feeling a little more like a Christmas Scrooge. Something I’d been working on wasn’t turning out as I wanted it to. I was doubting if my efforts even mattered and wondering if my work was making a difference. It’s something I think a lot of people who work with the homeless population feel; that they aren’t doing enough, or that the work they do is leading to dead ends. I think as humans, we all sometimes fail to recognize the many ways our efforts and work positively affect those around us, and I was plagued by those thoughts on that day.

That evening hundreds of homeless men, women, and children poured into the kitchen, suspending all worries, and relaxing into the warmth only a Christmas party can induce. Unlike any other day of the year, I think Christmas (or whatever wonderful winter holiday brings you together with friends and family) grants us the greatest suspension of illness, pain, suffering, and poverty. The pains of the human condition can be forgotten as we gather to celebrate the holidays, and I couldn’t help but feel real happiness, as beaming men, women, children, and pets,  all of whom had faced homelessness and countless afflictions, were truly filled with joy.

One hour into our party the cafeteria was packed with celebrating clients, and more were still trickling in! A friend and I guessed how many people might be in the cafeteria at that moment. 

“More than 200.” I supposed.

“Maybe more like 300.” she guessed.

“Wow, 300!” I said.

It reminded me of a number I had considered earlier that day while working on my frustrating project. The number was 394, and it represented the number of individuals that had successfully transitioned out of our shelter and into housing of their own last fiscal year. It was merely a statistic to report earlier in the day, but when I looked at a room filled with hundreds of people, the number came to life, and I couldn’t help but imagine those 394 individuals enjoying Christmas in the warmth of their very own homes, maybe for the very first time.

The work I do at Lantern House is a tiny sliver of the work our leadership, case managers, security, kitchen staff, and thousands of volunteers perform, not to mention the hundreds of doctors, therapists, law enforcement, and government staff, who assist homeless individuals throughout the community every day. Nevertheless, it is moments like that; imagining the hundreds of people who have left our shelter and are decorating their own homes and sharing meals with their loved ones, that make me really proud to be a part of the work that helps so many at Lantern House.

Submitted by Hannah Bowcut

Grant Writer, Lantern House