Plymouth Homeless Assistance Team (H.A.T.) supplies good furniture and good food to people in need.

 

Each year, Plymouth dedicates its Thanksgiving offering to H.A.T. in order to fund not only its furniture and food distribution programs, but also to provide grants to approximately nine local agencies that provide food, shelter and transitional housing (one month to two years) to adults and children in crisis.

 

To donate furniture (for example, beds, kitchen table and chairs, dressers) or to volunteer for the pickup crew, call Holly Smith at 515.276.1850. Furniture is picked up on the 2^nd Saturday of each month.

 

The volunteer pickup crew of two to five Plymouth volunteers meets at the U-Haul store on 63^rd Street at 7:45 a.m. on the second Saturday. With a list of contacts and items to be picked up at each donor location, the crew runs its route. By 11:30 the same morning, they deliver all furniture to one of four agencies that provide shelter or transitional housing—Anawim Housing, The Home Connection, Homes of Oakridge, or New Directions Shelter. Deliveries are made on a rotating basis so that each agency may receive furniture from H.A.T. three times a year.

 

On the 26^th and 27^th of each month, a different board or group within the Plymouth Church congregation takes care of organizing, preparing, delivering and serving the evening meal at Central Iowa Shelter and Services (formerly Churches United Shelter).

 

At 6:00 p.m. on the second Sunday of each month, H.A.T. members gather in the Waveland kitchen to assemble breakfast casseroles. The Salvation Army mobile canteen distributes them to hungry people on the streets of Des Moines. Anyone can join in casserole building; bring your children!

 

Volunteers pick up bread and pastries from Panera Bread in West Des Moines on Friday evenings. The schedule: