Safe Nights still growing

Provides warm place on cold nights

Friday, Jan. 1, 2010

With winter time comes fun holiday traditions and often a break from the usual work or school routines. But winter also brings freezing cold temperatures, which drop at night, adding further hardships to the already difficult lives of homeless individuals.

For the past three years, volunteers from a rapidly growing number of local churches have organized to feed and house the homeless of Calvert County for 22 weeks, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. as part of a "Safe Nights" program, which was incorporated this past October.

Mary Ann Zaversnik, a member of St. John Roman Catholic Vianney Church in Prince Frederick, initially coordinated the program with her husband Joseph, who now is president of the Safe Nights of Calvert County Inc. interim board of directors.

Zaversnik said that safe nights started in November and will run through March.

"Last season was our first full season," she said, adding that this year 18 churches will serve as "hosts" and an additional 20 will help out.

"Once a church starts doing it and sees that it can work well, others join in," Zavernik said, continuing that while church participation is up, the number of people registered to spend the night in the churches is generally on par with years past.

Zavernik said that so far 30 participants are registered, while nightly attendance is usually around 12 or 13 people.

"Most will stay the entire night … some will be with us the whole season," she said. " … We have a couple [participants] who have been employed and lost their jobs, but a lot of the — we call them ‘guests' — are chronically homeless."

She said that bedding and food is provided as well as various forms of entertainment including games, videos and books.

Zavernik also said that overnight monitors are "absolutely" encouraged to speak to the guests.

"It's such a rewarding experience … it's so spiritually uplifting to know that you can help one person from getting ill or even freezing to death," Zavernik said, adding that she expects the program to have close to 2,000 volunteers by the end of the season with 70 to 75 volunteers per week.

She added that while "we want to be open for anyone who needs a space to stay," Catholic Charities USA provides a background check on all registered individuals to make sure they are not registered sex offenders or have a history of violent behavior.

"We have to keep everyone safe, the other guests as well as the volunteers," Zavernik said, adding, "We've never had any major incidents and we hope we never will."

Because of the successful growth of Safe Nights she said that some churches have started allowing guests to stay all day on Sundays, which Zavernik said "seems to be working well."

Zavernik serves as secretary for the Safe Nights of Calvert County Inc., while the Rev. Peter Daly of St. John Vianney Roman Catholic Church is the treasurer.

Shawn Maassel of First Lutheran Church in Huntingtown is the board's vice president and said that she is thrilled by how many churches have gotten on board with the program, naming Dunkirk Baptist Church and Chesapeake Church in Huntingtown as two of the churches to recently step in to help out.

"We've made a lot of phone calls," Maassel said, continuing that the Zaverniks also gave presentations on the program at various Calvert County churches.

"We try to make it as accessible as possible so as many people can participate as possible."

lbuck@somdnews.com