With no other place to go, a mother pulls her van into a newly graveled lot. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s a godsend. It’s lit with a streetlight, and there’s running water, portable bathrooms, and outlets where she can charge her phone.
The entire lot is fenced, and the gate locks at night. Her kids can play in the field nearby. In the morning, there will be a hot meal ready at the church next door, and her whole family will be given bagged lunches filled with sandwiches, fruit, chips, drinks, and treats.
The mother will also receive a gas card, food card, and community support from a local organization to help her back up on her feet.
This service, called Safe Parking, provides an important temporary refuge to families with no place to go. The program is hosted by Spanaway United Methodist Church, and it spurred the creation of another program called Family Promise that helps complete the circle for families in need.
Hot Meals and Hot Showers
To explain how Safe Parking came to be requires going back in time nearly four years.
A charitable organization called New Hope Resource Center approached Spanaway UMC about establishing a mobile resources site for unhoused people in the Spanaway area. New Hope’s Mobile Resource Response Team (MRRT) travels to different sites every month and offers services like mobile showers, mobile laundry, clothing donations, and service sign-ups.
Located along a bus route frequented by unhoused people, Spanaway UMC was an ideal location for services. Church member Mary Fahnlander thought the program was worth a trial period. Mary serves the church as the Missions Chair and chair of the church’s women’s organization, United Women of Faith.
“My dad always taught us, first of all, don’t ever think that you’re better than anyone else—but don’t ever let someone tell you that you’re not as good as they are,” Mary said.
Her father’s lessons instilled in Mary a sense of love for others and for herself that translated to love and hope for unhoused people.
Mary presented her vision to host MRRT to the church trustees, a group of congregants who manage the church’s upkeep and contracts. Church members wanted to play a more active role in providing social services, but it was a daunting initiative, especially in the depths of the COVID era.
Mary urged the trustees to try out the program for just six months and then decide from the results whether to continue. Over the first few months that Spanaway UMC hosted MRRT, trust grew between church members and unhoused guests, who showed respect and appreciation for the church.
“It did a lot to break down the barriers of the ideas of what unhoused people [look like],” Spanaway UMC Pastor Samara Jenkins explained.
Now as many as 60 people come to the church’s parking lot on the first and third Mondays of each month. While New Hope provides showers and laundry, volunteers serve hot meals and bagged lunches to go.
During rainy or cold weather, guests eat and chat quietly at tables in the church lobby, the stained glass of the worship hall providing a calming backdrop.
Safe Parking
Spanaway UMC’s successful partnership with New Hope spurred Mary to consider what else the church could do. An unused lot on campus presented the perfect opportunity: a Safe Parking Site where unhoused women and families could park overnight.
Pierce County’s Safe Parking Site program is made up of volunteered parking sites throughout the county. A Safe Parking Site is “a safe and managed location for people experiencing homelessness to park their vehicle and sleep at night,” the Pierce County website explains. “The sites provide a greater level of safety and stability to vehicle residents through providing access to services. They also help protect the health, welfare and safety of the general public through regulations including requiring sanitation facilities, a code of conduct for people living in vehicles, and a site safety and security plan.”
Understandably, there were some misgivings about inviting strangers to stay on Spanaway UMC’s campus.
“How about we give it six months?” Mary urged once again.
Safe Parking proved to be a success. Unhoused families were motivated to find housing and better their lives, and Safe Parking was an important step on a longer journey.
The parking lot had to meet certain requirements to qualify for grants, including having a paved or gravel surface. The program originally used donations to remove overgrown blackberry brambles and purchase gravel. But after two years, the lot needed a facelift.
Washington Rock Quarries team member Ray Fulk connected the church to Washington Rock’s Giving Back Program. The company shipped 100 tons of 1¼” Minus to the parking lot in mid-spring this year, and volunteers spread it.
Toward a Brighter Future: Family Promise
Jessica Pair, coordinator for Safe Parking and Council Chair at Spanaway UMC, works with an organization to fill slots at Safe Parking. She and Pastor Samara Jenkins found themselves wanting to do more to help families get back up on their feet—to provide more permanent solutions, like housing, education, and childcare.
“I grew up around people that ended up unhoused or had unstable living environments,” Jessica explained. “So I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the community.”
Jessica and Pastor Samara saw the need to provide resources in the Spanaway-Parkland communities. Families were leaving Safe Parking in the morning and traveling to south Tacoma for resources, then returning to Safe Parking at night, costing them time and gas money.
Jessica and Pastor Samara began spending up to 80 hours per week advocating for families, which included reaching out to agencies and looking for resources to get families housed.
“We just became intimately involved with our families,” Pastor Samara said. “. . . We were having dinner with them. We were buying school clothes. We watched them start walking. We were here for first teeth. We were here for birthday parties and first days of school. And we were here for report cards and school pictures.”
Over time, the two women built a strong network of contacts while seeking resources for families.
“We were housing people really rapidly, our folks were getting help, and we were bypassing the system,” Pastor Samara said. “. . . All of a sudden, homelessness became human, and then it became not homelessness anymore.
Now others were turning to Jessica and Pastor Samara for information. But the 80-hour weeks weren’t sustainable. The two women were even spending their own money to help families.
“We knew that we needed more support, but we also knew we had to create it,” Jessica said.
Jessica and Pastor Samara learned about a national organization called Family Promise whose mission aligned with their goals to house and educate families. In November 2023, thirteen board members, including Jessica, Mary, and Pastor Samara, hired CEO Steve Decker to run a new local chapter of Family Promise. The organization now includes a Program Director and trained case managers.
The Program Director, Tamara Bobrovytska, is the first point of contact for families. She chooses a case manager that best fits their needs.
“[Tamara] gets to know them and gets a feel for who would be the best fit for them from [among] the case managers,” Jessica explained. It’s important to look at family members’ personalities, struggles, and other factors to determine which case manager will help each family unit have the best chance at success.
Family Promise provides an evaluation tool to help parents measure how they’re doing in areas like employment, housing, and education. Then the case manager will work with each family 2–3 times per week to achieve their goals. The case manager also helps them find housing through organizations like Housing Connector.
A computer lab located in Family Promise’s office offers opportunities for individuals to search for jobs, work on their education, and more.
Spanaway UMC offers their kitchen for families to cook and the meeting space next to their kitchen for classes. A house on the church’s campus is also available for families who need a place to stay.
After only six months of operation, Family Promise has helped 82 families achieve housing security by helping them stay in their homes or find new housing. Family Promise recently won a 20-month grant for $1 million from Pierce County that will allow them to serve as a shelter access hub.
Volunteers of Many Faiths
Spanaway UMC has brought together many organizations, agencies, and faith groups. The Elk Plain congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints started providing one of the hot meals for Spanaway UMC’s mobile resources program each month.
The other two Mondays of the month, mobile resources are offered at Our Lady Queen of Heaven, a Catholic church in Spanaway.
Elder Packer and his wife Sister Packer, two LDS senior missionaries, assist with meal prep at Spanaway UMC each month. Charlie, a member of Our Lady Queen of Heaven, also comes to help out every Monday because of how much he enjoys serving.
On MRRT Mondays at Spanaway UMC, the kitchen at the church is bustling with ladies making pancakes and eggs from scratch—breakfast for lunch, Mary explains cheerily. Elder Packer and Charlie come to the window of the kitchen to fetch plates of food and take them to hungry visitors. Nearby a table is filled with paper bag lunches, ready to be passed out as a parting gift.
The efforts of the volunteers is joyful, and visitors are clearly grateful. Visitors have come in cars, RVs, and by foot to enjoy what might be their first hot meal and shower in weeks, to wash clothing and sign up for services.
A poem posted on the inner door of the kitchen explains volunteers’ happy bustle best:
Thank God for dirty dishes;
they have a tale to tell.
While others may go hungry,
we’re eating very well.
With home, health, and happiness,
I shouldn’t want to fuss.
By the stack of evidence,
God’s been very good to us.
Spanaway United Methodist Church welcomes donations and volunteers, regardless of religious affiliation. Find out more on their website.
You can also learn more about Family Promise of Pierce County and New Hope Resource Center or donate on their websites.
Washington Rock Quarries is a family-owned business that produces rock, sand, and soil products at Kapowsin Quarry and King Creek Pit in Orting, Washington. To learn more about our community programs, visit our Community page.
This article is dedicated to the memory of my grandmother, Bessie Hart, who was a dedicated member of the United Methodist Church in New York.