Engineers: Charity begins at homeless shelter

By KARA E. SMITH
To most of us, home means four walls and a roof over our heads. But to the homeless, home can be any warm, dry spot they find during their travels - including the shelter of the many bridges and tunnels spanning the rivers, creeks and streams of New York state.

"Sometimes when we're inspecting subway tunnels, we'll lift up a concrete slab and see eyes staring at us," said Fred Richards, a bridge management engineer at the state Transportation Department (DOT) in Rochester and assistant council leader of PEF Division 284.

"We got involved with the Open Door Mission - a privately funded homeless shelter in Rochester - about five years ago when we started discovering these folks," Richards said.

Now, whenever the Rochester bridge inspectors find someone living under a bridge, they give the homeless person information about the Open Door Mission and encourage them to seek refuge at the shelter.

Engineers volunteer building skills
Many of the state engineers and inspectors have also found a new opportunity for community service at the Open Door Mission. Division 284 members have volunteered nearly 1,000 hours of their time to charitable projects at the shelter, under the sponsorship of PEF and the NYS Association of Transportation Engineers.

For example, a group of 13 volunteers, including 12 PEF members, recently rebuilt a deteriorated, wooden, handicapped-access ramp at the mission, raising money for the materials through raffles and donations. The completed ramp was dedicated to the memory of Division 284 member Bob Moretti, a civil engineer who died of cancer last year.

The PEF volunteers also rebuilt the floor of the mission's dining room in 1994. That room was dedicated to the memory of Walt Sendall, another Division 284 member and volunteer who succumbed to cancer.

"These were projects that really needed to get done, but that the mission could not afford," said PEF Division 284 Council Leader Ken McClenathan. "The mission relies completely on independent donations; it receives no government assistance."

Homeless deserve respect

"When we first began working with the mission nearly five years ago, we just wanted to get the homeless out from under the bridges so we could do our work," Richards said. "But after spending time working at the mission, we began to realize that to these people the bridges are their homes. We see they deserve respect.

"The Open Door Mission really does a great job with its residents," Richards added. "It has a great success rate and it's willing to take people no one else wants to care for.

"This project has really helped all of us learn to respect the homeless as human beings," he said.

Although no new building projects are currently scheduled, the volunteers plan to continue their charitable work with the Open Door Mission by donating food to the shelter.

"We're also looking into volunteering to build houses for Habitat for Humanity," said PEF member and NYSATE President Sharon Woodworth, a principle engineering technician at DOT.