Four cold weather shelters will open in Hillsborough County on Tuesday night as temperatures plummet in the Tampa Bay area.
City officials announced the county’s cold weather shelters program will be activated Tuesday night for the homeless and those who live in homes without adequate heat.
Temperatures are expected to dip as low as 46 degrees and possibly even below 40 degrees with wind chill overnight in Hillsborough County.
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At Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, volunteers spent the day setting up enough mats and blankets for at least 80 people.
“To be able to provide a night that they can rest comfortably at least somewhat in a safe place is really important,” said Heidi Aspinwall, Hyde Park United Methodist Church’s interim coordinator for missions and outreach.
Each person coming in gets a warm meal Tuesday night and a take-home breakfast Wednesday morning.
“They’ll have a hot meal tonight for dinner, and then they’ll have a takeaway meal in the morning. A lot of folks need to get to work. Our volunteers also need to get to work, and so we’ll have to reset, clean up, and then we just have to hope that it warms up,” Aspinwall said.
Also working hard to help is Metropolitan Ministries. Their volunteers spent Tuesday afternoon preparing hundreds of meals for the shelters.
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