Preparing a Meal at Van Buren Center

Save to Favorites

Community Shelter Board's Van Buren Center opened to address growing numbers of men, women and families who are experiencing homelessness, so no one has to sleep on the streets in our community. The shelter can accommodate up to 356 single adults and 64 families.

An entirely new service model has been designed to move people more quickly into stable housing and stop repeat homelessness. Case managers called navigators provide intensive case management focused on ending the homeless crisis quickly and stabilizing the person in housing.

While those experiencing homelessness focus on their road to stability, CSB aims to alleviate some of their stress by working with community groups to provide daily meals during their emergency shelter stay.

We need your help to prepare the evening meal either offsite or at the Van Buren kitchen. It is pretty simple. Prepare a protein - lasagna, a vegetable - tossed salad and a starch - garlic bread. Any meal like this works as long as it has those three item categories (protein, vegetable, starch).

Dinner time begins at 6 pm, so if you arrive at 4:45 pm, you'll have enough time to either prepare the meal in the Van Buren kitchen or keep warm your already prepared meal. You can stay to serve the meal or let others do that and leave at 6:15 pm.

Please note the following:

• closed-toe shoes are required
• volunteers will not be fed
• all visitors must go through security (metal detector and cursory bag check)
• due to confidentiality, taking photographs is prohibited
• minimum age to volunteer is 14 (with an adult)