Family Shelter at Alpha House for Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN).  The Alpha House day & night shelter facility is for about 25 people. IHN is a network of local congregations in Washtenaw County who provide volunteers to help with this shelter program at Alpha House.  St. Francis Parish is a member of the network that provides volunteers for a couple of weeks each year.   See the Volunteer Coordinators Task List below here on this page. 

Directions: Drive west on Jackson Rd., beteween Wagner Rd. & Zeeb Rd. ---it's on the right side, just West of the Ann Arbor Motor Mall, across from Jonathan Resturant.  Street Address:  4290 Jackson Road, Ann Arbor  MI  48103.
Alpha House for Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN); Phone 734-822-0220;    Website: www.alphahouse-ihn.org

Before and during the shelter we have at least three volunteer shelter coordinators take responsibility for coordinating each one of these three areas: overnight hosts; weekend hosts; & meals.   (For the actual shelter dates for St. Francis Parish, Click Here.)

NOTES kept by the past coordinators are also found here.   Coordinators should begin one month prior to the shelter date with communications to persons who played a role in the past year at our shelter.    Essentially the coordinator role boils down to making lots of phone calls & emails to folks on our list of past volunteers, as well as, the most recent Time & Talent survey.   And then marking them down for scheduled slots during the week of the shelter.   If we are unable to fill all the slots from those lists we can ask the parish office for other leads.

Two weeks before the shelter, parish members will sign-up to volunteer for short simple tasks, like: spend a night, just be present at an early evening to socialize with our guests, or provide/prepare some food for supper.  To Sign-up Click Here. 

The coordinator keeps the volunteer list, (for their particular task area) up-to-date and communicates any special needs with the persons that signed-up. (The coordinator does not have to be present during the entire week.) 

During our Alpha House week, a coordinator or experienced volunteer will serve as the "Evening Host" each night. 

Divide the Alpha House volunteer call list into color-coded thirds.  (It would help to categorize the list by volunteer type: supper time, evening, overnighters).

The 3 shifts for each evening are described on page 6 of the Volunteer Handbook: 
www.alphahouse-ihn.org/pdfs/resources/Volunteer%20Handbook%202007.pdf

Weekend shifts are also available for Saturday & Sunday.  Weekend requirements are described on page 5 of the handbook.

Keeping the master calendar on paper isn't very sharable, so, we enter it into a Google Calendar.  For our volunteer shift calendar for IHN Alpha House only confirmed people are on this calendar.   This is a permanent link to the Alpha House Volunteers data on Google Calendar.
This is where the callers enter the shift information.  The volunteer call list is a spreadsheet linked at:  http://spreadsheets.google.com/... ... ...  By invitation you may have access to this Google document. 

See Chris K. for the template documents used to build the invitation and thank you e-mails that go our before and after the host week.

(Volunteers are encouraged to prepare an activity if they desire - they should discuss their plan with the shelter aide when they arrive.  The staff normally plans activites for certain nights of the week:  Monday - Game Night; Wednesday - Art Night;  Friday - Group Activity Night (group games, races, etc.);  All other days are "free play".)

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Food & Meal Coordinator:

(There is a Menu format which is used to avoid having the same meal over and over.  It is a guideline which can be followed loosely as long as we make sure we have a variety of different meals.  If volunteers are willing to come in and prepare a "hot breakfast" on the weekend mornings, it is very much appreciated by the families.)

When you shop at any stores (like: Gordon Food Service (GFS) and/or any other stores in preparation for this shelter,  submit the receipts to Scott Wright, Parish Social Ministry Office (734-821-2121), and you'll be reimbursed.  Also, you may charge to the parish account at GFS if you communicate first with the Social Ministry Office.     Especially at GFS PLEASE sign the charge with your name and "SHELTER" so that our business department knows what budget to pay the bill from.  GFS emails the bill to St. Francis office on the same day that you charge so it is very important that you sign the charge clearly that it is for the "SHELTER".