NORTH TEXAS – The Irving Inclement Weather Shelter offers more than a warm meal and a place to sleep. Volunteers spend time with guests, help with laundry, and play games.

“We use a term called radical hospitality. The biggest thing we want our guests to feel is loved and embraced,” said Stephen Allen, executive director of Life Change Housing Associates.

Four years ago, Christ Church Irving donated a 12,000-square-foot building to Life Change Housing Associates to create this shelter. It’s almost entirely funded by private donations from neighbors and organizations.

“We don’t have a kitchen here, so everything that we eat here is brought in,” said Allen.

The shelter is always in need of businesses and organizations willing to sponsor a meal. The shelter will be open through Jan. 11.

“Just giving them a place where they can get out of the weather, a warm, safe place where they can just crash and sleep—you can’t get a good night’s sleep on the streets,” said Allen.

Volunteer Tangela Bedford knows what it’s like to be out on the streets in this weather.

“Especially when it’s cold and raining ice,” said Bedford.

She was once homeless herself, but over the last year, the team here has connected her with resources that found her a place to stay, a new job, and hope.

“This time last year I was actually in the shelter, and now I’m here to volunteer because I’m graduated, I guess you can say,” said Bedford, laughing. “And I got back on my feet to where I need to be.”

“It feels great, and it feels even better to know that I can come back and help and volunteer to help the next person as well.”

Over the last two years, they’ve helped 150 people find stable housing and helped hundreds stay out of the cold.

“I try to tell people all the time, don’t think that I’m anything special because I’m not,” said Allen. “I’d love to be home with my wife watching TV under a warm blanket, especially when it’s snowing outside, but the Lord has called us to do this to help others, and that’s why I do it—it’s for him.”

Summer Cromartie started volunteering here last year.

“The first time we volunteered, we knew that this was home for us to be able to meet a real and tangible need,” said Cromartie. “It’s one thing to be able to collect soup cans, but it’s another thing to be able to hand soup to an actual person.”

It’s that community that makes all the difference here.

“I just know that these folks are people with stories and mothers and kids, and they are just like I am,” said Cromartie.

The Irving Inclement Shelter is in need of new cots, blankets, and organizations and businesses interested in sponsoring meals for their guests over the next few days. To reach out to the shelter, visit Irvinghomeless.com.