KANSAS CITY, MO — Close to 100 people sought warmth at a Kansas City warming center each day last weekend as arctic temperatures gripped the metro, and another cold weekend is ahead.
Care Beyond the Boulevard, a street medic organization helping those experiencing homelessness, opened up shelter for three days last weekend to keep people from freezing outside. The organization normally uses The Beehive on Prospect for its clinics but transformed the space into an emergency warming center.
Staff and volunteers provided hot soup, cocoa, and a safe place to rest from 7:30 in the morning until 5:30 at night. Friday they saw around 70 people. Saturday saw 109 people come through the doors. Sunday brought 92 visitors.
At the end of each day, volunteers shuttled people to overnight cold weather shelters.
The effort comes as Kansas City saw more cold-related amputations last year than ever before. Something Care Beyond the Boulevard's founder and CEO wants to stop.
"If we get another spell like this, our staff and our volunteers will do the same thing and we'll reach out to the community and say hey help us, you know, like send us toilet paper, send us napkins, things like that so that we can keep people inside and literally save lives and limbs," said Jaynell "Nurse KK" Assmann, founder and CEO of Care Beyond The Boulevard.
Outreach workers visited homeless encampments all three days, offering transportation to the warming center and distributing hand warmers and tarps. The biggest barriers CBB said to getting people inside are pets, which aren't allowed in some overnight shelters, and fear of having personal belongings stolen from their camps.
CBB is always looking for donations. It has an Amazon wishlist here. Nurse KK said the most help in cold weather to prevent frostbite and other ailments are hand warmers and tarps.
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