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Everyone in the Twin Ports in the Twin Ports can feel the onset of the colder weather which inevitably sets in every year around this time. Many of us will cringe at the higher utility bills that go along with staying comfortable in our homes, but it’s easy to forget that there are those in this very community that won’t be paying utility bills, they don’t have a home to heat. In the last two weeks a handful of Duluth citizens have decided to take matters into their own hands in helping those who are disadvantaged in the area. We had a chance to talk to two of the primary organizers of Duluth’s “Let’s Warm the City This Winter” program. Aaron Gall and Elysia Kruger have taken it upon themselves to not only add to the comfort of those who will be out on the streets this winter, but also warm their hearts a little as well.

Reader: You’ve been helping out the homeless. When did you start doing this?

Elysia: Two weeks, today.

Reader: What have you accomplished in two weeks?

Elysia: As far as what we’ve accomplished, we’ve taken in a great amount of donations and the people we have gotten involved in this, it went from 50 of us to 400. People are really finding it their hearts to make these donations happen. Aaron and the street teams actually go out to various camps around town and hand out things like blankets.

The group did not want to disclose specific locations of where they go for the sake of protecting the people that they help for their privacy and safety. They did acknowledge that the camp at Graffiti Graveyard was among one of their stops.

Reader: I’m guessing the people you’ve encountered have been appreciative?

Elysia: We’ve had so many heart warming stories, it’s amazing. Aaron gets those more than I do, I sit behind the scenes a little bit and do the picking up of donations and getting them to Aaron. He’s the one actually out on the street and trains in the street teams. He goes out with a group of only three to keep it very small. He let’s them know to not use flashlights or cell phones to protect these people and not scare them. If it’s dark out and you’re sleeping and you’re approached in the night, you’re going to be startled. Aaron has really filled a repertoire with these people and they trust him. They call him “Brother Aaron.”

Reader: Are there any particular stories of why people have become homeless?

Elysia: As far as stories of why people are homeless, one thing that we’ve really stressed is regardless of what their past was, it doesn’t matter to us. We listen to their stories if they tell us, but it’s not something we hold on to. It’s not our business to judge who they are, it’s our business to help them because of who they are.

Reader: Sometimes people have some really hard knocks. If anything, society should be judged and not them.

Elysia: I agree with you and there are so many resources in Duluth that help people find housing and meals. But there isn’t a lot that helps them for “right now.” They don’t know where they’re going to be going tonight when it’s going to 17 degrees out. We focus on the “right now,” not so much are you going to have place to eat in the morning or a place to lay your head in a week.

Reader: The last time I covered the issue of homelessness was at the CHUM center and I found they make you jump through a few hoops to get in there.

Elysia: If someone donates to us, we take cases of water, that’s the only thing we take that’s ingestible. Things that will keep people warm, great. But things like canned goods, we take to the CHUM center. The CHUM shelf is really empty right now. We’ll work with others, we got a bag of children’s stuff, which is hard for us to give away and we gave it to the Union Gospel because we know they’ll get rid of it and CHUM will get rid of the food.

Aaron: Any overflow that we have, which unfortunately isn’t much, we’re pushing it every night. We do around three runs a day. The idea is to enrich other folks and to support them.

Reader: I will say that not a lot of people wake up one day and say, “I’m going to help the homeless.”

Elysia: I knew that Aaron had contacts and I had some stuff in my apartment that I was going to bring to Savers. I said, “is there some place where I can take this where people can get this for free?” If you don’t have a dollar for a bottle of water, how are going to have five dollars for a jacket? After a few days and messaging back and forth, we said, “let’s do this, let’s warm the city.”

Reader: Ideally, what do you need? What would you like from the community?

Aaron: This is all it takes, I would suggest just carrying an extra pair of socks. Not to change the image of things, but to make things a little bit brighter. We have no end and that’s the idea.

Reader: Let’s say someone doesn’t want to carry around socks, they have some stuff and they want to give it to you.

Elysia: What they need to do is go on our page (look up Lets Warm City This Winter on Facebook), Aaron or I will get in contact with them, it’s usually me because I drive, so I’ll go wherever these people are and pick up their stuff. What we’re looking for is jackets, hats and mittens, warm blankets, food, cases of water, hand warmers, basically anything that you have that will warm somebody when it’s cold out. Now that we’ve gotten going, it’s not so much of a temperature thing, we want to warm their hearts and so if you’re interested in helping out, Aaron leads the street team.

Aaron: These other organizations, it’s their passion to decide to get into this. One day they just “woke up” like you were saying. Perhaps they were a social worker who saw that the system was failing them emotionally. Some social workers end up hating people, maybe there’s politics involved, whatever. I suggest for only a second, that if you’re working with people who want to be helped, then you’re working with people that can be helped.