'I'm Not Alone': Nonprofit Offers Shelter, Meals To 13 Families In Need

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) -- A Twin Cities nonprofit doubled the number of people they help after learning of families living outside or in their cars.

The Family Place offers meals, housing assistance and educational programming during the day. When Ramsey County recently placed 13 families in motels to get them out of the cold, it turned to the nonprofit for help. The executive director said it's a request where the only answer was "yes."

The Family Place in St. Paul is a bridge for families in transition. It helps 40 people daily.

This year the day center learned of 13 other families, adding 36 people in need of assistance getting out of the cold.

"It was really tough," mom JoEllen Shafer said.

Shafer had been couch hopping with her 3-year-old. Then a month and a half ago, "It came to where I exhausted all my options so we were sleeping outside nightly in a tent," Shafer said.

Executive Director Dr. Margaret Lovejoy knew she had to help when Ramsey County asked, despite knowing it would strain their resources.

"The love of humankind, someone had to do something. The reason The Family Place is in existence because I found that families would leave the churches at night and then they had no place to go during the day," Lovejoy said.

Working mothers like Venesha Cogshell, with seven kids and grandkids, say The Family Place eased her worries.

"It makes me want more for them and it makes me just want to make sure that they don't ever go through this in life. Give me and my kids a place to lay, gave us food to eat, so very happy about that," Cogshell said.

The county placed Shafer in a motel, along with 12 other families. She'll also go through a life skills program at the day center.

"I feel like I'm not alone in it," Shafer said.

The Family Place is in need of donations to help feed the extra 36 people and to afford extended staff hours.  Click here to help.