Everything Goes Out
The doors come up and a line forms within minutes. Food, water, hygiene kits, clothes. Whatever is on the shelves that night goes out, and the trailer usually leaves empty.
SOMEBODY IS AWAKE OUT THERE.
A homeless ministry serving throughout North Carolina and abroad. We go beneath bridges, into the woods, through hidden encampments and wherever people are struggling to survive, bringing meals, essential supplies, hope, love and dignity. We keep showing up, building relationships and reminding every person that they are seen, valued and never forgotten.
The LeadA2
Why We Watch.
A watchman does not fix the city. He stays awake while it sleeps, walks the wall, and calls out what he sees. That is the whole of the job, and it is older than any of us. We took the name because it is the honest description of the work: we go where the need already is, we love people in the place we find them, and we stay long enough to be believed.
It looks like this. A van and a trailer. Blankets, water, hygiene kits, shoes. Bridges in Charlotte, camps in the woods outside Winston-Salem, the doorways the rest of the city has learned to walk past. We bring what we can carry and we connect people to what we cannot give them ourselves: housing, medical care, recovery, the churches and nonprofits who do that work better than we do.
We are not a shelter. We are not a program. Nobody here is anybody's case. If you have ever suspected that the most vulnerable people in this city are also the least visible, you are right, and the answer is not complicated. Somebody has to go out there and keep going out there. That is all this is.
GO to where needs exist · LOVE people where they are · CONNECT them with resources and with God.
The Meal RunA3
The Food Comes From Restaurants. The Miles Come From Volunteers.
Between four and five thousand meals a year are cooked by restaurants around Lake Norman and carried out to people living in tents, under bridges, and on the street.
Six restaurants around Lake Norman cook for this outreach. Between them they provide somewhere between four and five thousand meals a year, and not one of them charges the ministry for it.
What the ministry supplies is the second half: the volunteers who collect the food, drive it out, walk it in, and hand it to somebody who has not eaten today. The kitchens make the meal. Getting it to a camp in the woods is the part that takes people.
Alongside the hot meals there is a standing need for canned goods, which keep in a tent in a way that a cooked meal does not. Israel of Israel's Beans & Things keeps that need in front of people, and it never stops being a need.
The kitchens make the meal. Getting it to a camp in the woods is the part that takes people.
Blu Star Grill
Choplin's
Mi Amiche
Famous Toastery
Tacos 4 Life
Domino's Pizza
BY THE
NUMBERS
By the NumbersA4
50+
2013
2009
4,000+
The Youngest on the StreetA5
Some of the People Living Outside Are Seven Years Old.
Backpacks and school supplies in August. Toys, stockings and gifts in December. Books all year, because a child in a shelter still has a birthday and still has a first day of school.
A child who is homeless is still a child. They still start a school year, still have a Christmas morning, and still want something that belongs to them and nobody else.
Backpacks and school supplies
Toys, Christmas stockings and gifts
Books
From the Field · Photo EssayA6
She Came Back
You do not get an embrace like this on a first visit. You get it after months of showing up, learning a name, remembering it, and coming back when nothing was owed. This is what trust looks like once it has been earned.
The Last Mile Is on Foot
No road runs to these camps, so the blankets and water go in the way they always have: carried down the tracks at last light, by whoever showed up that evening. Half of them are somebody's kids.
Before the Doors Come Up
The team prays in the parking lot before the trailer opens, and again after it closes. In between, everything inside it goes out, and the people who came for it are greeted by name.
Ask Anyone What They Need
Ask anyone living outside what they need and shoes come up first. They wear through faster than anything else and they are the hardest thing to replace. So they are sorted by size and laid out on the ground, and people are allowed to choose.
Arms Around Each Other
Most of the volunteers are teenagers. They stand in a circle in a parking lot and pray before they walk in, because some of what they are about to see is hard. The remarkable part is how many of them come back the next week.
PhotographA7
From the FounderA8
Why I Walk the Streets.
My heart for those who feel forgotten began in middle school. I remember noticing the kids left outside the circles, overlooked and made to feel they did not belong. Years later, while attending Bible college, I first shared my faith on the streets. I felt more alive than ever as I witnessed tears of joy and saw what it meant for someone to feel genuinely seen, heard and loved.
That calling grew stronger while serving as a missionary in Belize. Sitting together on cardboard and sharing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bottled water and Bibles may have seemed simple, but those moments turned heads, built trust and earned respect. They opened the door for us to provide essential supplies and meals while bringing hope, love and dignity to people living on the streets.
We keep going because every man, woman and child experiencing homelessness deserves to be seen, loved and reminded that their life matters, and to be met with real help, hope and restoration.
In 2013, I was introduced to Charlotte’s homeless community. I saw people sleeping on the ground, beneath bridges and in hidden tent encampments. What first took me far outside my comfort zone became my calling and led to the beginning of Watchmen of The Streets. Today, it remains one of the greatest honors of my life to serve men, women and children experiencing homelessness alongside those who believe every life matters.
The AskA9
Classifieds · Ways to HelpA10
VOLUNTEERS
Walk with us. Bring a small group or just yourself to make homeless camp visits. No experience needed.
→ SIGN UPDONATIONS
Care packages · Quilts, scarves, gloves · Hygiene kits · Bibles · Blankets · Bottled water.
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