The Westmoreland Partners with Local Organizations for Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Event

GREENSBURG, Pennsylvania (September 10, 2018) – BYOB (Bring Your Own Box), a two-day hunger and homelessness awareness event, will be held at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art on September 15-16, from 10am-6pm each day. For this event, the Museum has partnered with Feeding the Spirit, the Self-Determination Housing Project of Pennsylvania, and Connect, Inc., who will have representatives at the event to share stories, statistics and resources about this issue in the Greensburg community.
Throughout the weekend, community members are asked to bring a box in the form of donated hygiene items, paper products, non-perishable food items and cleaning supplies, all of which will be donated through Feeding the Spirit.
The community is also invited to participate in a number of activities, discussions and live entertainment, including:

  • 11am-1pm: Make your own instrument in the Museum’s Studio on Saturday and Sunday.
  • 1-3pm: Musician Rik Golden will perform outside and throughout the Museum’s galleries on Saturday, and community members are invited to bring instruments to play and sing together on Sunday.
  • 3-5pm: An informal community conversation will take place each day to dig deeper into the topics of hunger and homelessness, and to discuss what individuals can do to help those in need in the region.

“The Museum welcomes this opportunity to work with these incredible organizations to raise awareness around some of the challenges people in our community face,” said the Museum’s Director of Education and Visitor Engagement Joan McGarry. “We feel it is important to bring people together to learn more about how we can make a difference in the lives of those who do not have as much.”
“We hope that the members of our Greensburg community will come to share in the activities and learn more about the issues of hunger and homelessness in our area,” said Deborah Thackrah, founder of Feeding the Spirit. “We want to raise awareness of the problems that challenge those individuals faced with food scarcity and homelessness. Positive changes can occur when people gather together and open their hearts to those in need.”
This event will occur rain or shine, but outdoor activities will be moved inside the Museum in the case of rain.
About Feeding the Spirit
The mission of Feeding the Spirit is to address human crises and provide long term solutions by reducing barriers to housing, employment and food security. In addition to offering a weekly community meal, Feeding the Spirit offers assistance in the form of offsetting copays and medications costs; subsidizing utility payments to avoid service shut-offs; providing pet food and hygiene items; supplying bus passes for transportation; securing household items, furniture, groceries, toys, books and infant clothing; and offering community scholarship funds. For more information, go to www.feedspirit.org.
About the Self-Determination Housing Project of Pennsylvania
The Self-Determination Housing Project of Pennsylvania is a statewide nonprofit organization that works to expand housing options for people with disabilities in Pennsylvania. The organization’s #CouchesDontCount advocacy campaign raises awareness for the disproportionate rate of young people experiencing homelessness that are “couch surfing”, or staying with friends or acquaintances rather than sleeping unsheltered. Some studies have suggested as high as 64% of youth experiencing homelessness are couch surfing as means of shelter. For more information, go to www.sdhp.org.
About Connect, Inc.
The mission of Connect, Inc. is to provide a full continuum of care to homeless, near-homeless and low-income individuals, children and families in Washington, Greene and Westmoreland Counties, including emergency housing, transitional housing, permanent supportive housing life skills and support services. Learn more at www.sphs.org/connect.html.
About The Westmoreland Museum of American Art
Committed to stimulating imagination and innovation through great experiences with art, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, is the only museum dedicated to American art in western Pennsylvania. The Westmoreland’s extraordinary permanent collection, with its strong focus on the art and artists of southwestern Pennsylvania, is complemented by an impressive schedule of temporary exhibitions— both nationally traveling and those organized in house—as well as community-oriented programming and special events. More information is available at thewestmoreland.org and on the Museum’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles.
The Westmoreland receives funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the Marketing to Attract Tourism Grant through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development; and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.