God’s Warming Spot is Pathway of Hope’s answer to a prominent need in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. The pregnancy resource center (PRC) maintains a coat closet for locals who lack access to warm clothing during the winter months.
“We just saw a lot of people who were walking in the wintertime and didn’t have coats and warm things, and a lot of people in our community don’t have vehicles,” said Diana Anderson, executive director of Pathway.
The PRC took a spare rack out of their storage room and threw some coats on it and started raising awareness of God’s Warming Spot six years ago.
Responding to ‘a need for warmth’
“We knew there was a need for warmth, and we just wanted to provide that in the best possible way we could without people feeling embarrassed,” Anderson added.
That’s why people can walk up to God’s Warming Spot and take what they need at any time, day or night, between October and March each year.
Anderson noted that people of all ages have benefited from the coat closet.
“There was an elderly couple there,” she said of one encounter when she arrived to tidy God’s Warming Spot. “I was able to talk with them and say, ‘This is because we want to love on you like Jesus would.’ And they were so excited to be able to get something warm for themselves from it, you know?”
While God’s Warming Spot used to be located outside Pathway’s old building, a business on main street in Greenville offered to house the coat closet in front of their office, ensuring it is well-lit and prominently displayed.
Community involvement
Pathway keeps the coat closet stocked, but community members are encouraged to add materials to the rack any time they see it is running low. And though it is managed by the PRC, God’s Warming Spot is a community effort — a local bank has donated toward buying things for God’s Warming Spot, members of local churches have gathered resources and various organizations have collected and donated items.
“We’re called to serve others and meet needs as God puts them before us,” Anderson said. “I think making these things available is a way that we can serve our brothers and sisters that we may never meet this side of heaven, but we can provide for them something that is an essential need that they have in their life to bring comfort to them, maybe in a tough time.”
Anderson wants to encourage others to start something like God’s Warming Spot in their communities because there are people with needs everywhere.
“We want people to know that it’s there, and we want people to start warming spots other places so that we can be Christ’s hands and feet to those who truly have needs,” she said.
Learn more about Pathway of Hope at pathwayofhopeprc.org.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Tessa Redmond and originally published by Kentucky Today.
