Helping Children Learn About Homeless in Florida

Coming for a church all-night sleepover at Church of the Palms in Sarasota, Florida, children are handed a cardboard box and various craft supplies and told to create a home for the night.

At first thrilled with the challenge to build a house -- with windows, doors, a sunroof … and condominiums! -- from cardboard, tape, and markers, slowly the realization of sleeping outside in a box with only the stars and what they've remembered to bring as comfort set in.

"We believe in experiential learning," said Children's Ministry Director Debby Wendell. "When the children feel the hard concrete underneath them, or are awakened by the sprinklers in the early morning, they suddenly know what being ‘unhoused’ feels like."

Third- through fifth-grade Church of the Palms children have the rare opportunity to also know the poor and homeless in their community, and sometimes even to help them get back on their feet.

The childrens’ programs partner with local social service agencies to help families moving off the streets into apartments find donated furniture, kitchen needs, and fill their cupboards with food.

Wendell says when shopping for food with children, she is impressed that they learn that the shopping trips are "not about me" but about their new friends they are helping to settle into a new home.

"Sometimes we've organized scavenger hunts for dinner,” Debby said, “and we encouraged children to search out acceptable food to eat that has been hidden in nearby dumpsters. At first they are repulsed, then they decide to enjoy the challenge. Finally they realize that for some people, garbage cans are the source of their next meal.

"We are trying to develop empathetic and merciful feelings about the poor, the ability to understand what happens to some people, and what are the ways back home that they can help to make happen," summed up Wendell.

"They totally learn by doing - this is the best way, maybe the ONLY way, that young children learn big concepts," she said. "Children also learn that they can be helped by helping others. Giving is not just one way: by serving we are served."

Debby is ready to share her strategies for raising children who are "doers of the word, not just hearers only. (James 1:22)" Contact Debby Wendell at dwendell@churchofthepalms.org, or call (941) 780 5857.

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