Depaul Slovakia: Breakfast for the Homeless

It has been almost 3 months since Depaul Slovakia launched its winter fundraising campaign called Adopt a Bed. Campaign started on the 4^th of December with a happening at the main railway station in Bratislava where three of Depaul’s beds were installed. The response was overwhelming.

Only during the first month of December they found more than 600 adoptive parents. People from all over the country were interested to help homeless people in Bratislava survive the cold winter season. The number of the gifts was big and what is most important – it is still growing. People can still join the campaign and adopt their bed, all information is available at www.depaul.sk. With the support of so many people Depaul can make a huge difference in lives of hundreds of people.

We would like to share with you one story in which one adopted bed saved someone’s life.

The Name of the Bed is “Lujza”.

Peter has been taking care of his mother for a couple of years and she lived until beautiful age of 97 years. They were really close to each other and her death was too hard for him to take. He couldn’t cope with the loss and he started to look for relief in alcohol. Alcohol took his job, his money and left him with many debts. Everything happened so quickly until he lost a roof over his head. For the next three and half years he slept under stairs in one of apartments buildings. Well, only when he was lucky enough. Who hasn’t lived on the street is not able to understand or to image what the life it was. The only thing which helped him survive was drinking. “You know, you either drink or you get crazy and you end all of it…” said Peter about those hard days of living on the streets.

Later he was suffering with many wounds on his knees so he started to visit our Drop-in centre St. Elisabeth. When his wounds got worse and he started to have problem even with walking, we took him to our shelter St. Louise where we care for clients with all kinds of health problems. After some time Peter started to share with us his sad story. He talked about his big family and how he lost contacts with everybody. He talked about his meaning of life and how he lost everything after his mother died. And also how the street has stolen everything even the last piece of strength and dignity.

Day after day, step by step, he was rediscovering in our shelter his new life and his passion for life. Slowly he rediscovered his hobbies like reading or sacral architecture and even some dancing. After seven months at the St. Louise shelter he moved to a nursing home.

This one single bed, which belongs to one of our adoptive parents, gave chance to this special man to start his new life again, but now with a roof over his head.

Thank you. Because of your support we are able to rewrite some of street stories and add new happy endings.