A Story from IHN

Ashley, a former IHNGC guest, graciously agreed to tell her success story after leaving our shelter for stable housing. Here, she talks about the ways in which she and her family were welcomed by IHNGC staff and volunteers. If you would like to support families like Ashley's, visit www.ihncincinnati.org to donate or volunteer.

One of the more important outreach opportunities here at CCG is our hosting weeks for Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN). We partner with other churches in our community to serve as hosts for a week at a time. One of the many volunteer responsibilities that is vital to our hosting weeks is Evening Host. This is a CCG member who is on hand to help the dinner and activity hosts with our facilities, answering questions like ‘where are serving spoons’ or ‘where are basketballs kept.’ You get the wonderful opportunity to meet our guests and learn about other churches in our area. We need a few more individuals or families to serve as Evening Hosts during our hosting weeks. Your time commitment is roughly three hours. Please consider getting involved with this very worthwhile activity. You can pose any questions to Denise Eck or Shauna Lieberman. There are other IHN opportunities also. Christ Church Glendale provides dinner for our IHN guests on Tuesday night. We are always looking for folks to provide food and help with set-up and clean-up. Dinner is served at approximately 6:00 pm. If this timing doesn’t work in your schedule, you can always provide a side dish as a contribution to the meal and leave it in the refrigerator. Please contact Cathy Theobald for more information. Christ Church Glendale also supplies Overnight Hosts on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Working in pairs, our Overnight Hosts provide a continuing presence for our IHN guests and help them get on the IHN bus early in the morning. Please contact Diane Todd if you would like to be added to this aspect of our ministry. Activities is another area of opportunity. CCG hosts have been providing activities for children on Tuesdays AND Thursdays for well over a year now. Activities are geared to the ages of our IHN guests. Sometimes that means a rousing game of basketball or a craft project with lots of paper and glue. If you would like to know more about this opportunity, please contact Nancy and Scott Barngrover.