PHILLIP'S WISH TOURApril 2008For Southlake councilwoman and business owner Laura Hill April 1 was a day that opened her eyes to how desperate life is for some of her fellow citizens and gave her an incentive to see what she can do to help the homeless of Tarrant County. Hill was part of a group of local residents who accompanied Cyndi Bunch, founder of Phillip's Wish, a non-profit devoted to improving the lives of the area's homeless, on a tour of the Presbyterian Night Shelter in Fort Worth. Although I knew there were homeless people in Tarrant County, it wasn't until I saw with my own eyes how their lives are that I realized the depth of the problem, Hill said.
The shelter, which has separate facilities for the general population, mothers and their children and the mentally ill, is located in an industrial area of Fort Worth off East Lancaster Street. Volunteers at the shelter provide meals and a place to sleep for a portion of the area's homeless population, meeting only some of their most basic needs. The organization also helps with a number of other services that include counseling, job training, life skills and applying for public aid. The number of clients needing help far outweighs the resources available and the number of volunteers. After taking the tour and speaking with some of the volunteers at the shelter and Bunch, Hill promised to relate her experiences to her fellow council members at the council meeting scheduled for that night. She said she was moved by the plight of the people who live on the streets and felt compelled to do something to help. 'Touring the Presbyterian Night Shelter was an incredibly emotional experience, the kind you feel in your gut,' Hill said. 'It was the kind of experience that made me realize I had to do something to help. The other members of the council were equally moved and are eager to do something to help this situation." Bunch founded Phillip's Wish four years ago after her husband, Phillip Pruitt, began living on the streets and disappearing for days at a time. Diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, Pruitt lost his job and severed his family ties because of his illness. Bunch and her son, Phillip, often searched the streets looking for Pruitt and became familiar with the hardships facing those who had no place to call home. At her son's request to help the homeless people stay warm, Bunch began collecting blankets and distributing them during the week before Christmas. "Cyndi Bunch and her son are both very impressive," Hill said. "Instead of just seeing a problem and thinking someone should do something, she has taken it upon herself to do everything she can to help people who have nothing." Hill said she sees an opportunity for the Southlake community to form a partnership with Bunch and Phillip's Wish that will be beneficial to everyone involved. She would like to get the city's youth involved in helping year-round and would like to see other civic groups join in the effort. "There is just a multitude of ways we can help," Hill said. "From collecting books for the library at the shelter to finding used computers that businesses and groups are no longer using for their computer lab, we have things that we no longer use that can be put to good use. I want to do what I can to make that happen." For Hill, the most touching part of the tour was seeing the thin foam mattresses the clients at the shelter sleep on each night. Sitting directly on the floor, the mattresses don't offer a lot of comfort, but they are still better than sleeping on the cold, hard ground. "With everything that so many of us have, I think at some point we have to establish a minimum level that every human being should have simply because they are human beings," Hill said. "Food and shelter should be part of that." |