In the parking lot of the First United Methodist Church in Hyattsville, Maryland, a trailer offering people without a home a place to take a hot shower has began operating. The mobile shower trailer is owned and operated by the nonprofit The Neighborhood Well.
The founder and CEO of the organization, Omolayo Adebayo, said the trailer will operate on the second and fourth Saturday of every month, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
“Neighbors who come needing a shower or just needing toiletries are welcome to come during that time to get a hot shower, to get a clean T-shirt, clean undergarments and any toiletries that they need to groom and bathe,” Adebayo said.
There will also be refreshments at the trailer for those who use it and a charging station where people can charge their phones.
Adebayo said the project has been in the works since 2017 and became a reality when enough money was raised to buy the more than $30,000 trailer.
Adebayo said that after studying where the largest numbers of unhoused residents were, she determined there was a need for such a service in Hyattsville.
She said the hope was to offer showers to 24 people each time they set the trailer up, but due to stepped-up COVID-19 cleaning, it will only serve 12 people per day for now.
“As we grow, as we get more volunteers, we may be able to expand our program time and therefore expand our service number,” Adebayo said.
Down the road, the organization also hopes to purchase a more than $60,000 trailer that would provide handicap access.
Adebayo said the goal is to give people a renewed sense of dignity, self-love and also just the “basic feeling of feeling clean.”
“That is something that a lot of us sometimes take for granted when it’s available to us at the turn of a shower knob,” Adebayo said.
