Throughout the past year the staff of ESHC has celebrated the past 30 years of business through departmentally lead community service events. The audiology department kicked off the year of celebration and giving back with a supply drive and service event at Providence Hospitality House in Seattle. The community events continued in August with a book drive in all three offices followed by a service event at Page Ahead presented by the speech department.
This past week the front office team was excited to host the third and final community service event in celebration of our 30 years. The team choose Tent City 4 in Bellevue, Washington as the site for giving back. As a team we cooked homemade lasagna’s and salads to feed the current 100 residents of Tent City.
Tent City 4 is a temporary encampment of up to 100 homeless persons who live in a group of tents on the property of a host. The program is sponsored and managed by SHARE/WHEEL (Seattle Housing and Resource Efforts (SHARE) and Women’s Housing, Equality, and Enhancement League (WHEEL)). Share/Wheel established Tent City 4 in the spring of 2004 on the Eastside after seeing a growing need for shelter in the King County area. Tent Cities provide a safe place to leave belongings, flexible hours for workers, and allows couples to stay together.
On Thursday, November 5th a group of 18 ESHC staff, friends and family made their way out to Bellevue’s First United Methodist Church (the current site of Tent City for the next 90 days). The group was amazed by the stories shared by the residents of Tent City. It was an eye opening night for our staff of the need for shelter in all communities, and we were proud to be able to help the homeless on the Eastside, even if only for one night.