PUEBLO — Organizers at The Pueblo Shelter want your help. The Pueblo Shelter, previously known as The Pueblo Rescue Mission, is asking for donations to help fund the city's only homeless center.
It's called the Pueblo 1000. The campaign was started by Safeside Recovery, which provides peer guidance and support groups for unhoused people as a part of the shelter's residency program.
"We can't do it by ourselves. It takes a community, and there's a great community here, and so we want to get them involved,” Rob Miller said.
Rob Miller helps oversee The Pueblo Shelter and is The President of Safeside Recovery.
Miller said the goal is to get 1000 people to donate $25 a month.
"That it would bring in $300,000 a year that would make a huge impact on the services that we can provide here,” Miller said.
The donations would mainly help pay the staff a fair wage.
"They're doing it because they believe in what's going to happen and that the community can support this Pueblo 1000 and that will allow us to give them, I mean, we just really want to give them a $1 - $1.50 raise from where they're at,” Miller said.
The funds would also allow the group to purchase more food.
“Our biggest challenge is protein,” Miller said.
He said on average, shelter workers and volunteers feed 35 residents lunch and dinner every day and at night, they feed up to 90 more people.
“Getting some chicken and some beef too. We get a lot of canned food donations. But, you know, getting stuff that's fresher and healthier, we would love to be able to share that with our outreach folks and our residents,” Miller said.
Last year when the shelter was under different leadership, there were many financial issues, including when a former executive at the shelter was charged with theft for stealing thousands of dollars from people at the shelter. Lori Arabie is scheduled for a plea and sentencing hearing in May. Miller said this tarnished the shelter's reputation and broke ties with community partners.
“Kind of in the past, I've heard the community and other providers didn't feel comfortable working with the mission,” Miller said.
But Miller said now that his team has taken over a bigger responsibility overseeing and operating the shelter, he is working to restore the relationships and funding that was lost.
“I think our reputation is starting to grow and the Pueblo rescue mission image is starting to fade away,” Miller said.
Miller said no donation to small, no donation to large.
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