Director Dianne Scott said the shelter serves 35 to 45 people a night, but that’s a fairly constant number and doesn’t have anything to do with snow, ice and cold weather. “These are people who are with us every night, warm or cold, because they have no place else to go,”Scott said.

She said more people might come to the shelter if they lose power and have no heat. “But if we lose power over an extended time,” Scott said, “we can’t operate.”

So far that’s never happened, she said. Duke Power does everything it can to restore electricity at the shelter, which has enough emergency light to last four hours. After that, they’d have to evacuate.

Ice and snow also complicate staffing. Scott said it takes two volunteers and two staff people, minimum, to keep the place going. With fewer people, another evacuation.

But even if they had to evacuate, everybody would have a place to stay. “They would end up in the Red Cross shelter,” Scott said.

Bunny Whitaker, programs assistant for Rowan Helping Ministries, said the main problem now is the huge increase in the cost of fuel oil and kerosene, up over 50 percent, from $100 to $150 per 100 gallons. “We expect it to still go up more,” she said. “For people on a fixed income, it’s devastating to them. It’s really hitting them hard.”

Cut-off notices from utilities come in middle of month, too, Whitaker said. “Electric, gas, water, we are getting a lot of those.” People can’t appeal to the companies, Whitaker said, because, “utilities go by strict guidelines. A lot is done by computer. They can’t bend the rules to make allowances and if you call, there’s no real person to talk to.”

Helping Ministries provides vouchers to people who need help with kerosene, fuel oil or propane. The number of people coming in for help has increased, along with the cost.

Whitaker said they’re also seeing a big increase in the number of people needing food because kids have been out of school, where they would ordinarily get breakfast and lunch. Playing in the cold makes them even hungrier.

“It’s depleting people’s food supply,”Whitaker said. “Our guideline is giving food once in two months, but in this situation we make allowances to give more.”

This means Helping Ministries is rapidly running low on food. “The food pantry is low on staples and this is the slowest time of year for donations,”Whitaker said. “We need pasta, rice, peanut butter, soups, dried or canned beans. We are out of dried beans completely. We are getting kind of desperate in that department.”

The shelter needs clothing, too. Whitaker said everybody is coming in for hats, gloves, socks, coats, even underwear, and blankets.

Then they need volunteers to help sort the clothing, work in the soup kitchen, hand out food supplies, interview people looking for assistance and help in the overnight shelter.

If the ice and snow persist, Scott said they also need people with four-wheel drive vehicles to drive volunteers to the shelter.

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