Be a Ray of Light to the Cold and Hungry this Holiday Season
I am Hannah Lee Jones and I'm a newer resident of Silver City, having lived here for only the last couple of years. But I love my little desert town, and how I came to write this letter asking for your donation support on behalf of The Silver City Gospel Mission is a long and hallowed story. But I will at least share the part of it that might help you understand why our organization needs your help so urgently.
Prior to arriving in New Mexico, for four years I lived out of a tiny house trailer in the desert of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada — camping and moving every two weeks on public land. I collected seasonal unemployment when I wasn't working as a housekeeper. And though I have never been without shelter in my life, it's fair to say that at the time I was poor, and that good nutrition and basic needs like winter clothing weren't always available to me.
The winter when COVID began, I found myself standing in the cold outside a food bank in Henderson, Nevada, not far outside of Vegas. It was a bigger city operation, and their procedure was that you were given a ticket with a number, when they called your ticket you went and chose your food items . While people waited, I ended up making conversation with a young mother and her five-year-old son. They were kind and I loved hearing the boy talk about all the sweets he was eager to get from the pastry section. When my number was called before theirs was, I told the mother to trade with me and to take my ticket. She thanked me and smiled as she scurried off to get their food, her son leaping behind her like an excited puppy.
Five years have passed since that experience at the food bank. Since I now work at a shelter for the homeless and hungry, I share this memory with you because I have known hunger, and have experienced the kind of uncertainty that comes with having no one in the world to turn to. I am deeply acquainted with the chokehold of scarcity that hits you at the level of your being and makes you want to disappear.
At the Silver City Gospel Mission, our work is not just about feeding people, though we've been doing that for many years — providing hot meals, shelter, warm clothing and blankets and other necessities to the homeless in our town and throughout Grant County. Our real work is about combating despair. As grocery prices skyrocket and the housing crisis deepens across our country and state, more people than ever are feeling the pinch, and this affects more than just their physical lives. Their mental health suffers, along with their relationships. The number of unhoused seniors is growing at disturbing rates across New Mexico, particularly in rural areas like our own. Their healthcare needs often go unmet. In times such as now, the mission renews its commitment to being a rock of assistance and compassion to those who have nothing or who have lost everything. We do it because we can't always rely on our governments to take care of our poor. We do it because love demands nothing less of us.
As the temperatures drop outside and the holidays approach, the mission is in urgent need of your donation support. We are asking for your resources, physical and financial, to care for and bring hope to the people who come through our doors. Please read below for our more specific needs and to find out how you can help.
For as long as I have lived in this state, I have been so touched by the tremendous warmth and generosity of New Mexicans, who don't hesitate even for a moment to give of what they have, often in spite of their own challenges and constraints. And when they do it yet again, coming through with their capes flying to offer their assistance to the poor ones and sick ones, I say: this is what love looks like.
More than ever before, we're in this together.
If you're in trouble or hurt or in need, go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help...the only ones. ― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
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Our immediate in-kind donation needs include cold-weather items such as jackets, gloves, blankets, warm beanies, sleeping bags and sleeping pads. We are in particularly urgent need of men's clothing and accessories.
Food donations of canned, boxed or frozen items can be dropped off in person at our location on 111 S. Texas Street, Silver City, from 9 am to 1 pm, Mondays through Fridays. Your items supply our busy soup kitchen and weekly food pantry.
Your tax-deductible financial donations nourish our ongoing operations, including our rising utilities costs and compensating our hardworking staff. Please help us keep our doors open to our guests throughout this winter. Your contributions can be made online: (1) on our website; (2) in-person at the Gospel Mission, 111 S. Texas Street in Silver City; (3) by mailed check to: P.O. Box 5198, Silver City, NM, 88062. In all three instances please be sure to write "Winter Holidays 2024" in the memo or notes that accompany your donation so that we can properly thank you.
Join our team as a volunteer. Recent funding from United Way of Southwest New Mexico has enabled us to build a peer support counseling program to build stronger bonds between our guests and the mission, so that they have a true "home" with us. A buddy system that pairs volunteers with individual guests at breakfast and lunch helps our guests to feel supported, listened to, and prepare themselves to receive recovery and other forms of assistance. Email your interest to
The Silver City Gospel Mission is honored to serve over 1,300 people each month and volunteers provide in-kind support of more than 500 hours per month. In addition to providing hot breakfast and lunch on weekdays, the mission offers Thursday morning food box pickups, free shower and laundry services, emergency food and clothing, assistance with cold weather shelter and referrals to other area social services.
