For women experiencing homelessness, having a safe place to sleep is essential. But even within a shelter, having a small space that feels like your own can make a meaningful difference.
That was the goal behind a recent volunteer project at Catholic Charities Samaritan House Smith Road, a women’s shelter in Denver, where volunteers from Xcel Energy spent the day building partitions designed to create semi-private spaces between beds.
“We’re building partitions for the women’s shelter to kind of privatize their living quarters,” said Mehana Ho’opi’i, director of engineering at Xcel Energy.
The partitions provide a simple but important addition to the shelter. Once placed between beds, they give women staying at Samaritan House more separation from the larger shared sleeping area and a greater sense of personal space during their stay.
Xcel Energy Volunteers Get to Work
The project brought together Xcel Energy employees as part of the company’s annual Day of Service. Volunteers spent their time assembling the partitions so they would be ready for the Samaritan House team to put into place.
“This is day of service this whole week it’s a 16th annual daily service for excel energy and we really honor events of 911 and remember all the people and who helped out and who sacrificed their lives and their time on 9/11,” Mehana said.
For Stacy Aplin, a senior change management consultant at Xcel Energy, the project was also an opportunity to bring together employees who felt a connection to the women the shelter serves.
“I would say that this group was organized-both of us are members of the woman’s interest network which is a business resource group at Excel Energy- so we organize this because this is for the women shelter we thought it would be a great opportunity for when to show up and excel to show up,” Stacy said.
The volunteers’ work was just the first part of the transformation.
The following day, the Samaritan House team power washed the shelter and began setting up the newly built partitions between the beds. Together, the work helped refresh the sleeping area and create a more welcoming environment for the women who call Samaritan House home during a difficult season in their lives.
A Project Made Possible Through Partnership
The project was also made possible by another longtime Catholic Charities supporter, Leprino Foods.
Through a generous donation from Leprino Foods, Catholic Charities was able to purchase the materials needed to build the partitions. Their support, combined with the time and skills contributed by Xcel Energy volunteers and the work of the Samaritan House team, turned those materials into something women at Samaritan House can benefit from every day.
Leprino Foods has been a longtime supporter of the Catholic Charities mission, and this project is another example of the difference community partners can make by responding to practical needs across our ministries.
And the work isn’t finished.
Catholic Charities hopes to build additional partitions so that more women staying at Samaritan House can have a semi-private space of their own. Individuals, businesses and community partners interested in donating toward additional partitions or learning how they can support projects like this can contact CorporateEngagement@CCDenver.org.
Sometimes, making a shelter feel a little more like home starts with something as simple as giving someone a space to call their own.