Dallas needs volunteers to serve meals at cold weather shelter

Our Calling is looking for volunteers to help serve lunch and greet people at cold weather shelters at Fair Park.

The backstory:

Since Saturday, overnight temps in Dallas have been below freezing, triggering the opening of two emergency shelters at Fair Park for a second week in a row.

"It’s a little bit colder than it was last week. It’s in the 20s. But not only are we at capacity, other shelters are getting full as well. So, it’s pretty tough to find room for people to come in," said Pastor Wayne Walker, the CEO of Our Calling.

What you can do:

Pastor Walker said the two shelters at Fair Park are at capacity, with about 900 people staying there.

And while the operations are the same as last week, the organization needs more volunteers.

"In order to serve about 3,000 meals a day, it takes an army of people. Normally, at Our Calling, we have thousands of volunteers a year. But just up here in the last few weeks, we’ve had almost 500 volunteers come serve. But we have lots of spots still left," he said.

Walker said volunteers are mostly needed to help with serving meals. But greeters are needed as well.

Related

Dallas to open Fair Park shelter ahead of freezing temps

The City of Dallas will open a building in Fair Park for people looking to get out of the cold on Sunday.

"They can serve meals, greet people when they come in, give them a blanket, shake a hand. We need the rest of the community to show up and help us at Fair Park," he said. "It’s pretty simple to go to ourcalling.org/cold and you can see ways you can volunteer, give, buy things off our Amazon list. These are ways the community can participate in loving our neighbors well."

The shelters are expected to stay open until temperatures get above freezing by Friday night.

The Source: The information in this story comes from an interview with Our Calling CEO Wayne Walker.

Fair ParkWinter Weather