Depaul Slovakia: Breakfast for the Homeless

We want to express our big Thank you to all donors who supported our project on Global Giving. The gift will be used for preparing food for clients in nightshelter and two shelters.

 Since 2006 we serve people in need every day and night with no interruption. Nothing, even the planned reconstruction will not close our nightshelter’s door and stops us from providing shelter for people in need. There is no other place in Bratislava which would offer similar services for clients with no additional conditions to enter. At the moment we help daily 180-210 clients in our nightshelter and two shelters.

 Our clients from shelter St. Louise enjoyed sunny days of the early autumn which made gardening very pleasant and rewarding. Vegetables and fruits harvested from the garden were used and shared with other clients and joy was multiplied. Clients at Nightshelter celebrated the World Bread Day in October with the biggest loaf of bread ever made in Slovakia. The bread was made in Nitra’s bakery and was 2,29m long, 0,8m wide with weight 36kg. It only took one supper at nightshelter to consume it.

 Since October we started a Working Groups pilot project focused primarily on our clients from nightshelter. Two times a group of 20 people collected garbage and cleaned streets in a nearby area. The goal is to motivate our clients, activate them in a meaningful work and give them opportunity to pre-pay for our services and gain other benefits. We were encouraged to see many clients interested in this project and enjoying the activity. As a secret surprise we prepared for them a special food served on nice china with white tablecloths. They just loved it. It was exciting start, but we need a longer period for proper evaluation. The plan is to expand this activity into a work agency or social business which would generate jobs for our clients and provide space for our social workers to deal with their debts and other work problems.