Lipscomb students start on-campus winter shelter for homeless
Lacey Klotz |
Growing up attending Brentwood Hills Church of Christ in Nashville, Macy Cottrell, a senior molecular biology and vocational ministry major, witnessed her congregation’s longtime partnership with Room In the Inn.
Each year, Room In The Inn provides a winter shelter program with the help over 190 churches who open their buildings to offer hospitality to people who would be otherwise sleeping in harsh winter conditions.
Recognizing her heart’s sensitivity for suffering and underserved individuals within Nashville’s homeless community, Cottrell said she knew she wanted to provide a winter shelter on Lipscomb’s campus.
“I knew I wanted to help, and went from office-to-office to see if Lipscomb would support this partnership with Room In The Inn,” said Cottrell.
One day during the spring semester of her junior year, as Cottrell was “frantically running around campus,” she ran into Walt Leaver, vice president of university relations at Lipscomb, she said.
Leaver, who has also served as the pulpit minister at Brentwood Hills since 1997, has been very involved with both Room In the Inn as well as The Bridge Ministry for several years, and helped Cottrell find a facility on campus to make her vision possible.
“It is wonderful that Lipscomb is hosting a Room In The Inn site again this winter,” said Leaver. “This ministry has been serving homeless men, women and children in Nashville for decades, and is a very practical and beautiful response to Jesus' words in Matthew 25: ‘I was a stranger and you invited me in…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did for me.’
“We can certainly be proud of and thankful for the example and service of our students who are literally welcoming and serving Jesus on the Lipscomb campus.”
Beginning last February through March 2016, Cottrell, along with three other students, helped lead a Room In The Inn winter shelter in Lipscomb’s Student Activities Center, which hosted 10 men for a total of six weeks. Nearly 12 Lipscomb students volunteered each week at the winter shelter, Cottrell said.
The completely student-led, student-run and student-funded Room In the Inn winter shelter at Lipscomb provided shelter occupants with two home-cooked meals and a sack lunch, a comfortable bed as well as opportunities to shower, do laundry and fellowship.
Students picked men up at 6 p.m. at Room In the Inn’s headquarters downtown and dropped them off at 7 a.m. They set up TV monitors for men to watch movies and hosted opportunities for intentional conversation.
“At the first meeting last year, Warren Lipscomb, who is an alumnus of the university, led a time of worship and that went over really well with the men,” said Cottrell. “But what we most looked forward to each week was our intentional conversations. A lot of time these men just want to tell their stories and be heard, and we are really excited to get to know who they are as people and become their friends.”
For the second year in a row, Lipscomb students have partnered with Room In The Inn to provide a winter shelter for 14 homeless men every Saturday night from November 2016 to March 2017, excluding campus holiday closures.
The first winter shelter of this year will be held on Saturday, Nov. 5, and will be held from 6 p.m. on Saturday until 7 a.m. on Sunday in Lipscomb’s Student Activities Center.
Lipscomb’s Student Government Association is helping fund this year’s winter shelter along with on-campus social clubs who have committed to sponsoring designated dinners by cooking and serving meals. The men’s social club, Tau Phi, has also committed to cooking and serving breakfast at each winter shelter.
Cottrell says that since she is a senior, she is sharing her leadership role with two sophomores who can ensure the Room In The Inn winter shelters happen at Lipscomb year-after-year.
“Having a winter shelter on Lipscomb's campus is an answered prayer and I fully believe it would not have happened without God's intentional pursuit of goodness,” said Cottrell. And having students volunteer to give up their Saturday night is both inspiring and humbling. We couldn't have done it without their generosity.”
This is simply one area Cottrell is looking to give back as a student at Lipscomb.
Cottrell is also one of four students who created Ed. Pack Global, a backpack company that makes a donation for female education in both developing countries and in the United States, for every backpack sold. Ed. Pack Global won Lipscomb’s 2015-16 Kittrell Pitch Competition and were awarded $10,000 to help launch their business. The four Lipscomb students have official plans to launch Ed. Pack Global this January.
In addition to helping create Ed. Pack Global, Cottrell is one of Lipscomb’s Ward scholars, has recently studied at Oxford University in England, has been on three medical mission trips as part of Lipscomb Missions program, and is part of Lipscomb’s 3+1 program, where she will graduate this spring with a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology, a secondary degree in vocational ministry, as well as a master’s degree in molecular biology.
Interested in volunteering at Lipscomb's Shelter for Room in the Inn? Contact (615) 879-6361 for a link to sign up. Service Chapel Credits and SALT Tier III Credit available.