Story & Photos By Thomas Ellis II
This past Saturday, Sept. 24, there was a great community event held in Downtown Newark to reach and service the homeless population in and around Newark Penn Station.
Gloria Mills, the Founder of Humans 4 Humanity, organized the event out. She put together some volunteers with her group, and reached out to John Elmaragy the Founder of ArchAngel Raphael Mission in New Brunswick, for assistance John provided the mobile shower unit.
Ms. Mills stated, “By the Grace of God, it could be me homeless and in need of help, but giving love is what it’s about.
“After Katrina happened, I started asking people to donate items. I was shocked by all the donations that were received, which motivated me to create a group to help the homeless. We have done several projects, and this was the second mobile shower for the homeless in Newark.”
I asked John how long he and his group have been helping the homeless.
“This is the first year holding it in Newark, second year of providing showers, and our sixth year of service to the homeless,” he said.
Cindy, a sophomore at Rutgers New Brunswick, volunteered with homeless projects before, and sees such a need that she is now starting up Project Love on campus to get more students to join her in reaching out and helping others.
Ms. Mills arrived early and stayed late giving out clothes, shoes, and food to those that came up to her table. She wanted to make sure that the people knew that she was not alone in this effort; it’s the volunteers, the partnerships, and the passion to want to give back that makes the difference.
Taking a shower gives you such a good feeling, and not only does it clean your body, but it can also help with mental cleaning, because good hygiene is a mental thing.
It’s so important that people, groups, and organizations continue to reach out to the homeless population wherever they may be in a park, behind a building, sleeping on the streets, or in a shelter. Because anyone can become homeless in a blink of an eye and need services, resources, a roof over their head, and a shower.
Now this is a very personal article for me to write, because I have been homeless three times in my life, all by choice. So, I can understand the plight of homeless. I quit a good job back in the early 80s working at the world famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, and went to Washington D.C. and stayed in a shelter on 6th and I street to begin my research and understanding of homelessness. Years later, I went to Atlanta, Georgia homeless to see the Olympics in 1996.
As an advocate for the homeless, I will say this: never look down on anybody, because you don’t know what brought them to that level.
