Prayer breakfast seeks help for Samaritan House

The Samaritan House of Orangeburg County Inc. is a 501c (3) non-profit organization located in Orangeburg and which has served the homeless community since reopening in September 2020. It provides temporary shelter, meals and supportive services to individuals experiencing homelessness.

Samaritan House Executive Director Henry Miller said nearly 70 members from the faith community, including pastors, participated in the July 9 breakfast held at South Carolina State University’s I.P. Stanback Museum and Planetarium. He thanked all of the sponsors that made the event possible. 

“We invited ministers from Orangeburg, Bamberg and Calhoun counties to come together to talk about what we’ve done since being reopened, and then also see what they can do to help support the Samaritan House going forward. Some of these churches already support us, but we wanted to bring them all together to share with them some of the success stories that we’ve had, as well as some of the challenges that we’ve had,” Miller said. 

Samaritan House Board Chairperson Brenda Jamerson said, “The shelter is open 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Funds are needed to defray the cost of general operating expenses which includes, but is not limited to, full- and part-time staff.”

Miller said suggestions were gathered from the those who attended the breakfast on how they could help support the shelter’s mission of uplifting the lives of the homeless population.

“They were able to talk about some of those things,” Miller said, noting that some of those ideas included having churches organize annual fundraisers to support The Samaritan House.

Organizing pillow drives, donating clothes and offering transportation to shelter residents to get their medical and other appointments were included among the other ideas.

“One of our biggest challenges is always going to be financial, but … transportation is one of the bigger challenges that we see with our residents. Orangeburg has a transit system, but the transit system only goes so far out in the county,” said Miller, noting that the shelter could also use volunteers to assist residents with resume building and job interview skills.

Jamerson said the faith community is one of several target groups that the Samaritan House will focus on to try to drum up more support. She said the Samaritan House will likely target members of the business community with a future program.

“Our budget a year is about $350,000. I don’t know if the community knows that, whether we’ve gotten that message across well enough or not. All of our funding comes either from grants that we apply for, or from donations from the community, which is the faith-based community, businesses, organizations, or just from individuals,” she said.

The board chairperson continued, “It takes about $375,000 a year to run this operation. People may think, ‘Why did they need so much?’ Primarily, our operational expenses are high because we get no other kind of funding other than just that.”

“We get between $40,000 to $45,000 from the county per fiscal year to help us with operating expenses. We don’t get any operating expenses from the city at all. Now we did get help from the city for getting our facility painted – that came from a city grant – and for getting the driveway repaved. The city also gave us the funds for buying new beds, mattresses and stuff like that,” Jamerson said, noting that operating funds are still needed outside of the amount the shelter receives from the county.

“We’ve formed the Orangeburg Coalition for the Homeless, which is a number of agencies that have come together to develop a plan for the tri-county area really on what we see are basic needs for the homeless population. We’ve presented that report to the city and the county,” she said.

Jamerson said a comprehensive plan on how to deal with the homeless is needed, particularly since their population is growing.

“We presented what we thought were some solutions. So what we’re really trying to do would be asking them to come to the table with us, and let’s come up with a plan. Let’s at least have some conversations with major city and county government officials. You can see them all over now more so unless you’re blind,” she said.

Miller said state Sen. Brad Hutto helped the shelter secure $650,000 for the expansion of the shelter’s kitchen space.

“When the city gave us the funding to buy the news beds and we were able to increase our capacity, it also increased the number of people who were going to be eating in the cafeteria. We saw anywhere from 40 people in the cafeteria to now like 54. So with this funding from the state, we are going to be able to try to build a stand-alone kitchen, or either a stand-alone cafeteria to be able to accommodate the residents,” he said.

Jamerson said, “We’re hoping that we’ll be able to start with that sometime next year…. I’m very proud of the funds that have come in from all entities,” noting that plumbing issues still persist, however, and will take more money to fix.

She said the prayer breakfast is just one way to reach out to the community to outline the shelter’s operational needs.

Miller said, “We hear great the great stuff from the community that we’re doing, but when the finance piece comes about, it’s like we’re not being heard.”

Jamerson said, “We just have to keep asking… That’s why we call ourselves a working board,” noting that securing board members who already have expertise in grant writing and other specialties helps to reduce operational costs.

The Samaritan House is looking for four more members to join its current 15-member volunteer board. Samaritan House is seeking individuals with expertise in the following areas: marketing/public relations; fundraising, grant writing, social service and technology.

Jamerson said she thinks the prayer breakfast will yield results.

“I’m hoping that they will be able to go back to their churches, or have influence with those entities, to start some conversation in their church about addressing the issues of the homeless. What we need to do is send that list of suggestions back out to all of them and let them look back through some of them,” she said.

“We’re hoping that a definite faith-based action plan can be developed that will help bring in funds,” Jamerson said, noting that in-kind donations are also welcome.

For more information on the Samaritan House, or how you can help support it, call 803-809-1090, ext. 101.