Shepherd’s Door participant Raquel and Engagement Communications Manager Mike Deckon hold up our last four winter coats at Shepherd’s Door.
For the women and children who take refuge at Shepherd’s Door, one of the last things we want them worrying about is how they’ll feed or clothe themselves and their family. Recovery is about transformation, and our goal is to give them hope for the future by restoring their life to one filled with meaning and purpose. With this goal in mind, it is important for Portland Rescue Mission to provide all of our residents with clothes and meals during their time in New Life Ministries. To make this happen, we need your help restocking our clothing inventory. We’re down, literally, to four pairs of children’s rain boots and four warm winter coats!
Will you help us stock up our personal care room at Shepherd’s Door?
Will you help Raquel?
Raquel came to Shepherd’s Door with virtually nothing. With two growing boys in tow, ages six and seven, Raquel couldn’t take much of anything with her on the long trip from Texas to Oregon to begin her recovery journey at Portland Rescue Mission. That was March. Coupled with the life-altering decision to uproot her life and transform her future in early spring, weather patterns in the Pacific Northwest were the last thing on her mind. Now, nearly eight months later, her boys continue to grow, and she’s experiencing the cold and rainy fall and winter weather for the first time.
It’s cold and rainy outside. Please help us provide rain boots and winter coats for our kids at Shepherd’s Door.
“My boys and I are from Texas, and so I’m not very familiar with buying winter clothes and using them,” Raquel explained. “I’ve never even owned a raincoat or a pair of rain boots, but you need them here.”
Raquel spends her vocational hours helping manage donations that come in to Shepherd’s Door. She’s in charge of maintaining and organizing what’s known as the personal care room for all the women and children in the program. She’s found herself regularly blessed and humbled by the work she does every day.
“It’s so heartwarming to see how generous people are, and how people will go out of their way to find sizes and types of clothing that our women and children need,” she said. “They go out of their way to take care of us individually.”
Being cared for has impacted Raquel, along with so many other women in the program, on a much deeper level.
“There are so many times when women will come in here with nothing because they will have to leave a lot of their things behind to move here in the first place,” she said. “But then they go down to the personal care area, and are able to get both them and their kids the clothes they need.
“It’s awesome, because that’s the Gospel. You have to leave everything behind, and yet, God still provides.”
Lazara, one of Raquel’s fellow residents at Shepherd’s Door, who has two kids of her own, finds a similar peace.
“Having clothes available for my family adds a whole different element that we can rest in because it reaffirms the fact that we’re here, we’re cared for and we have everything we need from food, to clothes, to shelter, and everything in between,” she said. “It not only helps me save money, but it helps me know God has my future in His hands.”
Your gift of gently used and/or brand new clothes from a store makes a difference in the lives of the women and children at Shepherd’s Door.
For moms like Raquel and Lazara, not having to worry about what they or their children have to wear each morning gives them a peace that is vital to their recovery. It is the Gospel in action. Our women and children at Shepherd’s Door are clothed through the compassion and generosity of our donors.
We are currently in need of kid sized rain boots and winter coats. We can always use regular clothes, undergarments and hygiene items for women and children. Shepherd’s Door accepts donations at our facility in northeast Portland from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.