Dining with Dignity
Breakfast: Monday through Thursday, 7:30-8:30
Dinner: Monday and Tuesday, 4:30-5:30 pm
Serving over 50,000 meals annually.
Pathways
Community Volunteers who accept admission to the program become core team members and receive benefits of job and life skill training, case management, mentoring, housing assistance, and a monthly stipend.
Shalom Ministries began as a nationwide effort within the United Methodist Church in 1992 to create effective ministries in urban settings. Two years later, a separate 501(c)3 was created in Spokane that brought together religious, business, political, and social service communities to find solutions to poverty and homelessness. Shalom seeks to build relationships and community amongst people who are disenfranchised. By providing a safe, loving, and accepting environment the door can be opened for healing and renewal, creating a sense of belonging to something greater than one’s self.
Lower Level
New Community Church
518 W Third Ave
Spokane, WA 99201
Downtown Spokane
at 3rd Ave & Howard St
Access by the
Howard Street door.
Shalom Ministries' Core Team is distributing "Grab and Go" meals to our guests, complying with all recommendations of the CDC and the Spokane Regional Health District. Last year, we served 53,536 meals, the most ever!
In the midst of winter, we had to reinvent how we serve our guests. With warm weather, we could ask folk to receive their food outside, but now we moving folk through the church, single file in one door and out another, with masks to keep guests and servers alike safe.
Hand sanitizer, masks and disinfectants are in short supply. We also need donations of sleeping bags, blankets, men's coats and boots. Please bring donations to the glass doors at 518 W Third; ring the intercom bell; someone will greet you.
We will also need a few willing volunteers, ideally younger or fully vaccinated, to help fill the gaps in our core team, which has been doing all the work and will continue to do most of it. If you would like to volunteer, please click the volunteer tab above!
Stay safe! If you have comments or questions, please email, or text or phone (509) 455-9019.
We need volunteers to serve breakfast
especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Come find out what a rewarding
experience this can be.
CALL 509-455-9019
“In most cases, to be homeless in America is not a sign of laziness or incapacity, but an indicator of people who struggle immensely, both physically and emotionally, to survive against the odds.”
We serve all who come to us seeking to be fed: young and old, men and women of any race or creed. Most are homeless or
“In most cases, to be homeless in America is not a sign of laziness or incapacity, but an indicator of people who struggle immensely, both physically and emotionally, to survive against the odds.”
We serve all who come to us seeking to be fed: young and old, men and women of any race or creed. Most are homeless or underemployed; some are fighting addiction or illnesses, and all struggle immensely to survive against the odds.
He never misses a meal at Shalom, a disheveled gentleman with a thick gray beard and sharp eyes beneath bushy brows. He shuffles across the street to wait for his “Grab and Go” box. He is always polite and insists on waiting in line, though volunteers offer to fetch food for him. Street people call him “Can Man.”
At a table set up for stud
He never misses a meal at Shalom, a disheveled gentleman with a thick gray beard and sharp eyes beneath bushy brows. He shuffles across the street to wait for his “Grab and Go” box. He is always polite and insists on waiting in line, though volunteers offer to fetch food for him. Street people call him “Can Man.”
At a table set up for student nurses on a cold morning, he sits for a minute after eating and tells a young nurse he might have frostbite. She gently peels off his glove to expose deep frostbite to his index finger along with second degree frostbite to several others. He removes the other glove. The student nurses cleanse and wrap the damaged fingers.
Their supervisor provides an experienced voice. “If you don’t want to lose your fingers, you’ll need to have that treated. Can I look at your feet?”
Volunteers help him inside and the nurses remove his shoes and socks to expose frostbitten toes. A tub of warm water is provided, and they gently clean and dry his feet; treat and wrap the toes. Clean socks are found, and his shoes put back on.
“This isn’t enough to save your finger and toes, you know,” the supervising nurse tells Can Man. “I don’t want to lose any of my fingers or toes,” he replies softly. “You’ll need to go to the emergency department for further treatment, or that is going to happen,” she warns.
“All right. I’ll have them looked at. I don’t want to lose my toes,” Can Man mumbles unhappily. CHAS volunteers arrange an Uber to take him to Sacred Heart. He hasn’t yet returned to Shalom. We hope to see him again, toes and fingers whole.
“Many people are hungry for bread that will satisfy their bodies, but they are just as hungry for love that will satisfy their soul.
Many people are naked and need clothes that will protect their bodies. Emotionally, these same people experience a nakedness of soul as they are slowly stripped of their human dignity.
Homelessness is more than just not having a home. Homelessness is being and feeling rejected, unwanted, unloved, and uncared for.
Most homeless people have forgotten how the human touch warms the soul and causes us to smile, and all people long for someone to recognize them and to wish them well.”
This video, shared with our guests at the St. Lucy's annual breakfast benefit at Rockwood Retirement Communities's Event Center, is a great snapshot of Shalom's Ministry in 2020 and of our amazing and generous supporters!
Shalom Ministries | Spokane, Washington
518 West 3rd Avenue, Spokane, Washington 99201, US | shalommeal@gmail.com | A 501(c)3 Corporation
Copyright © 2020 Shalom - All rights reserved.