About Women’s Lunch Place (https://womenslunchplace.org): WLP welcomes about 250 women each day, most of whom have experienced trauma, abuse, and loss without judgement or requirements for assistance. They provide free meals, medical care, basic necessities, advocates and services to women in crisis suffering from domestic violence, mental illness, addiction or stress of being homeless. Last year they served 104,715 meals to over 1500 women.
COVID has resulted in shifting the WLP meals to take out. All of their services have switched to an outreach model. WLP now passes out meal bags to their guests during COVID. They are always looking for encouraging messages or cards of inspiration to include in these bags to brighten their days.
Our team of Youth Ambassadors and volunteers (mainly 7th and 8th graders) at Help Empower came together and made cards with positive messages, quotes, and poems. WLP is including these cards in the bagged meals as an extra layer of support as many of their guests are experiencing the loneliness of social distancing and are missing the support offered by the usual communal gatherings in the WLP shelter.