Our Noel House guests have found a new home!
The women who formerly slept on the floor of Bloedel Hall now have a permanent home in the Central area of Seattle. The building is a former day care center and is named the Bunny Wilburn Home, in honor of a woman who worked to establish an early childhood education facility in the space a few decades ago. Each woman has her own bed and space to keep belongings. They do not have to leave in the morning. What a blessing! Operation Sack Lunch is providing breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a full time case manager is onsite. Click on this link for a Seattle Times article from early September.
For over 20 years, Saint Mark’s Cathedral has opened its doors to 30 women each night of the week. They have slept in Bloedel Hall and received an evening snack and light breakfast. Our dedicated volunteers have cooked soup, sewed holiday bags, shopped for groceries, picked up and delivered donations from Food Lifeline, tended the vegetable garden, and served meals in the evenings and mornings. Then, when COVID-19 required the Cathedral to close to the public, the women moved to other emergency shelters set up by the city. The move to the Bunny Wilburn Home is good news for our former guests.
When it is safe to gather again, we will plan an event for volunteers to meet and tell stories and reminisce.
The Saint Mark’s community and Justice Ministries are committed to responding to the ongoing challenges of the homeless population. Watch for news of opportunities to volunteer and get involved.
2 Responses
Lillo Way
Dear Noel House Ministry,
As a past volunteer at Noel House/St. Marks, I deeply appreciate your service, and particularly admire Norva’s excellent and tireless work on behalf of the homeless women you help serve.
Here is my question: Must you persist in refering to the women as “ladies”? It seems like a mockery. Surely you have noticed that the term has disappeared from common parlance. Do your refer to the female members of your congregation as ladies? I certainly hope not.
All the dictionaries I consulted define the term “lady” more less as this:
a woman (used as a polite or old-fashioned form of reference).
Similar:
member of the fair/gentle sex
2.
a woman of superior social position, especially one of noble birth.
“lords and ladies and royalty were once entertained at the house”
Your use of this term to describe the homeless women of Noel House is difficult to view as anything other than a false condescension at best, a sarcasm at worse.
Sincerely,
Lillo Way
Saint Mark's Cathedral
Lillo thank you for your comment. I can assure you in the strongest terms that no disrespect, condescension, or sarcasm whatsoever was intended by that word. The post has been edited to remove it.