Open Table, Green Street serve homeless in Nashville’s negative temperatures

As Nashville’s winter weather has hit its ultimate lows, the homeless community has been struck with even more adversity — but that’s nothing Green Street Church of Christ and Open Table Nashville can’t help diminish. “It’s really heart-wrenching to see the amount of suffering that there is in our own city — in our own backyard — when we’re so warm,” said Lindsey Krinks, Director of Street Chaplaincy and Education of Open Table Nashville. Wednesday night the temperature plummeted into the negatives, but organizations like Open Table and Green Street alleviated a lot of the suffering. But even with all of Nashville’s warm shelters, Krinks said the city has already seen six exposure-related deaths in the homeless community this winter. “In the last couple of days I’ve tended for four people with frost-bitten feet and we’re finding so many people out still,” she said. Krinks said the need is overwhelming, but as a non-profit, interfaith community, Open Table is working hard to put a dent in Nashville’s homeless community. “We help people navigate the very complex social services and housing systems,” Krinks said. “Instead of people coming in to us — like the mission [Nashville Rescue Mission] and Room In the Inn [where] people from the streets come in and receive services – we go out to where people are and we take that [services] to them.” Krinks and the Open Table team are on the lookout, especially with more snow and low temperatures on the way for Friday. “We do outreach canvasing at night, so when it gets this cold we go out on the streets and we’re driving around, and we go...

Caleb Pickering receives Mary Morris award for service

Caleb Pickering received the Mary Morris Award of Exemplary Service to Society in a ceremony at Thursday morning breakout chapel in Collins Alumni Auditorium. Pickering thanked his family, his church and his mentor, Richard Goode who won the award last year, and he urged students to use their time at school wisely. “At the simplest level, service to God and to man is the sacrifice of your time so that you can give that time to others,” Pickering said. This award is given every year to a member of the “Lipscomb family” who demonstrates a high level of service to the community and to the church. “The criteria for the award is they exhibit a spirit of volunteerism, they engage in meaningful activities in the community to help spread God’s light. They demonstrate a commitment to Christian missions wherever they may be and that they are an advocate for Lipscomb University,” Phillip Camp said before he handed the award to Pickering. Pickering helps Green Street Church of Christ’s ministry to the homeless. The Nashville church’s congregation recently decided to allow homeless people to sleep on its property and sometimes even let them into the sanctuary to sleep. “Even at times when the local government and others are opposing them, they have decided to stand and fight for this,” Camp said. “They try to meet the needs of their homeless guests while also maintaining their dignity and offering them real friendship and real relationships.” Beginning in 2000, the church started partnering with a group of Lipscomb students called “Fools for Christ.” According to the Green Street website, “Every Wednesday hundreds of college students and...