WITH VIDEO: Student volunteers help homeless in Detroit

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Homeless stomachs in Detroit were filled this weekend thanks to a collaboration of college volunteers.

Students from Central Michigan University, Mid Michigan Community College and Ferris State University traveled to Detroit on Saturday to pass out bagged lunches and winter clothing to people living on the streets.

The students volunteer with Homeless Outreach Ministry Equipping, a Midwest nonprofit aimed at helping provide for the homeless. In Mount Pleasant, they meet through His House Christian Fellowship.

Nikki Steffes, a Grand Blanc junior and His House member, organizes the volunteers.

“We meet at His House one Friday a month to bag lunches and gather clothing donations,” she said. “Normally, we bag anywhere from 200 to 250 lunches.”

After prepping on Friday, a total of 17 volunteers carpooled on Saturday morning to Detroit. In 20-degree weather with a chilling wind speed of 15 miles-per-hour, the volunteers ventured down the streets surrounding Cass Park in search of people who might need food and warm clothing.

“We met two guys … one was probably a little drunk, but he was entertaining,” said Mount Pleasant junior Victoria Wawrzyniak-Fry. “We got to talk to him and give him some food and some jackets and stuff.”

Wawrzyniak-Fry has been on multiple trips, and she said one of the hardest parts of volunteering is witnessing suffering. She has seen homeless people with mutilated faces, on crutches and in wheelchairs.

She said there have been times when the situation turned threatening.

“One time, we had guys that were falling behind us that were saying nasty stuff,” she said. “You’ll get that sometimes, but you just keep walking.”

Of the 200 bags they brought, only a handful remained.

“We had a few leftover bags, because I think (people) try to stay out of the weather,” said Mid Michigan junior Jared Shepardson of Mount Pleasant. “It’s harder to find people in the winter, but we still seem able to.”

HOME was started in 2009 by former Mount Pleasant 911 dispatcher Shelley Gilpin. She saw poverty in Detroit on a mission trip and said she felt God was calling her to do something.

The sight of a homeless boy about the same age as her son, she said, broke her heart.

“God opened up my eyes to see that people that are homeless are still children of God, just like we are,” Gilpin said. “It might be a job loss or mental instability … but they’re moms, dads and people’s children, no different than anyone else, except they’re homeless.”

Gilpin developed HOME into a nonprofit in January 2011. They have worked with volunteers in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

Although many of those helped have expressed gratitude, some are suspicious about the group’s intentions.

“There was a homeless guy who asked me that question once, and I didn’t know how to answer him,” Steffes said. “I just told him we wanted to love on him. It changed my perspective on the homeless … Until you meet that one person, then it’s no longer a statistic. It’s a heart.”

For more information or to get involved with HOME, contact Steffes at steff1nm@cmich.edu.