Air date: June 27, 2019
It’s Saturday afternoon and WAVE Project is hosting their monthly outreach barbecue in Mount Clemens. Patrons receive a hot meal, free haircut, hygiene kits and most importantly – conversation. Todd Gordon and Dale Pittman are just two of six friends who wanted to get out into the community and make a positive impact.
Dale: Our name stands for Welcoming All Valuing Everyone and that’s a relational thing where we just want to come and hang out with people, meet new people.
Todd: We spent time building relationships with people experiencing homelessness and hygiene services was something that became really evident to us as a need.
Mitch: If you don’t have a home where are you going to take a shower right?
Todd: Yeah and the idea that transportation is such a huge barrier for them so to think that in metro Detroit we can have a shower trailer that we can partner with organizations and bring it to them.
WAVE Project recently received enough in donations to purchase their first shower trailer. It will have three private stalls – providing roughly 40 showers per day. With plans to hit the streets in August, they are looking for a truck to tow the trailer and partners that need their services.
Mitch: When people get an opportunity to clean up it changes their attitude.
Todd: When I don’t feel clean maybe I can’t approach that family member that I have had a rift with maybe I don’t feel confident enough to go into a local business and apply for a job or get treatment so we are just trying to just meet them right where they are and provide the basic service along with the relational elements and the love.
Dale: The homeless community was a big deal for us just to get to know these people and treat them like people don’t treat them like they are nobody.
WAVE Project is showing respect and sharing love to a community in need right here in the heart of Detroit.
