A Sunday afternoon worship service and meal shared by neighbors and volunteers from various faith communities in Austin. Volunteers share prayer, music, food and fellowship with 80 neighbors weekly. Partners in the program include St. David’s, St. George’s, St. James’ and St. Mark’s Episcopal Churches, Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, Trinity Episcopal School, Triumphant Love Lutheran Church, Travis Christian Assembly, First Baptist Church, Yegua Creek Evangelical Free Church and Agape Christian Ministries.
A devotion time, breakfast, tea and coffee, and fellowship on Monday mornings. Volunteers serve as personal shoppers, assisting neighbors with shopping for clothes, accessories, and toiletry items from the Center’s clothing closet. Approximately 40 neighbors participate every week, along with ten to twelve volunteers. This program seeks to meet the special needs of women experiencing homelessness.
Recreational activities, arts and crafts, story time and lunch one Sunday per month shared by families from The Salvation Army shelter and volunteer families from St. David’s Episcopal Church, Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, and Westlake Bible Church.
Drop-in center/day resource center activities for neighbors experiencing homelessness. Wednesdays through Fridays begin with a devotion time (spiritual readings and prayer) and breakfast for 60 neighbors. After breakfast, neighbors come and go throughout the day. Trinity Center provides basic necessities such as restrooms, a place to sit down, a temperature-controlled environment, and beverages. Our chapel is available for individual or small-group prayer. Neighbors can use our computer lab and phone calling service (local every day and long-distance on Fridays) to maintain contact with family members and friends, to search the Internet, and to seek employment and services. Trinity Center also provides a mailing address and mail service for neighbors. Staff and volunteers also help neighbors one-on-one to learn about and contact social service resources in the community.
Small amounts of financial assistance to cover the costs of Texas photo identification cards, birth certificates, school records, or other documents necessary for obtaining a photo ID. Trinity Center staff and volunteers provide not only funds but also information and guidance to help neighbors navigate the complex process of obtaining identification documents. This program also assists with prescription medication costs, Capital Metro Disability Fare Cards, and Capital Metro 24-hour bus passes.
Intensive one-on-one work where neighbors set goals related to housing or personal stability (education, employment, health care, mental health care, and the like) with a case manager, then work to achieve those goals. Case management is provided by an AmeriCorps Member via Trinity Center’s partnership with the Keep Austin Housed AmeriCorps project and by interns from the U.T. School of Social Work.
On Fridays we show a movie with a spiritual or life-affirming theme and serve popcorn. This treat is a welcome respite from the harsh realities of homelessness.
Donated lunches containing nutritious, non-perishable food and juice. The lunches are given to neighbors in special situations where they will not be able to access food, for example, while staying with a loved one in the hospital or while traveling, or when they have medical needs, for example, to attend an appointment or to manage blood glucose levels.
St. David’s and Trinity Center volunteers offer overnight accommodations and a hot meal in Trinity Center to homeless women and their children on Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights when the temperature falls below freezing. Trinity Center partners with Front Steps/ARCH, The Salvation Army, Capital Metro, Central Presbyterian Church and the City of Austin in this program.
Trinity Center offers meeting spaceto Texas Reach Out Ministries and the Crime Prevention Institute to provide support and educational groups to help people successfully transition from incarceration into the community.
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