PADS at All Saints

PADS at All Saints Lutheran Church, part of the Journeys | The Road Home network, is an overnight shelter for our homeless neighbors each Saturday night. Every Saturday night from October through April, we offer warm, secure shelter and nutritious food to the men, women, and occasionally children who come to us in need.

How You Can Help PADS at All Saints

New Volunteers: Sign up with All Saints & register with Journeys. 

1) Send us an e-mail with your contact information to [email protected] letting us know you want to volunteer. We’ll contact you.

2) Sign up for a shift on our website and add it to your web browser: https://signup.com/go/AyFFFhO.

3) Then register with Journeys…Visit their website, enter your information and in the comment section put “Volunteer at All Saints PADS” and you’ll be contacted for your for orientation.

All Volunteers: Call your Volunteer Coordinator if you can’t serve as signed up so we can find a replacement. Provide your phone number for quick contact.

All volunteers must be adults.

What PADS Volunteers Do

This video describes what PADS volunteers at All Saints do on a typical Saturday night and Sunday morning.

FAQs About Being a PADS Volunteer

PADS is the faith-based emergency shelter network that supports Journeys | The Road Home, a not-for-profit social service agency responding to the needs of the homeless and those at risk of becoming homeless in Northwest Cook County. PADS is an acronym derived from Public Action to Deliver Shelter, the name used when the shelter network was organized in the late 1980s. From October through April, PADS provides safe overnight shelter and nutritious food in 18 churches located in Palatine and eight other nearby municipalities.

During the PADS season (October through April) each shelter is open one night each week from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. the next day. Guests are offered a hot meal; a sleeping pad with clean linen; breakfast in the morning; and a “brown bag” lunch. Volunteers, working in shifts, are hosts and hostesses for the guests and clean up after the guests depart.

Our biggest need is for volunteers willing to work face-to-face with our guests. Just to open our doors each week requires a minimum of 18 volunteers. Each season more than 100 volunteers collectively give more than 2,000 hours of their time to care for our guests. We also need volunteers to cook the meals we serve and donate meal items, such as beverages, bread and lunch meat.

No. We welcome volunteers from the community who have completed the Journeys volunteer orientation.

Volunteers working with guests are fundamentally hosts and hostesses for the guests in our home that night. Tasks vary by shift. In the early shift volunteers get things set up for the night, prepare and serve dinner. After dinner volunteers might play board games or converse with guests. On the overnight shift, when most guests are asleep, volunteers make sandwiches and pack lunches. The early morning shift prepares and serves breakfast. On Sunday morning, starting at 6:30 a.m., the clean-up crew cleans and restores the rooms used for the shelter in preparation for church uses.

Typically, volunteer cooks prepare the meals at their homes and drop off the hot food early Saturday evening. Nutritionally balanced meals are planned for each week and several volunteers sign up to prepare the entrée, side dishes or desserts (usually 6-8 servings each). In addition, other volunteers purchase beverages (milk and juice), bread, lunch meat and other essential items.

No. We have shifts starting at 6 p.m., 8:15 p.m. and 11 p.m. Saturdays and 3 a.m. Sundays. Cleanup crews start at 6:30 a.m. Sunday and are usually finished in about an hour.

Volunteers work schedules that are convenient to them. We ask only that you honor any commitment you make and work the entire shift. If your plans change, please let the Shift Coordinator know as soon as possible so a replacement can be found. Whether you volunteer once a month or more frequently, or only two or three nights during the season, your help is appreciated.

A friendly smile and a good attitude are the most important qualifications for a PADS volunteer. Everything else you need to know will be described during an orientation session all volunteers (for positions with guest contact) must attend. This basic volunteer training assures that PADS policies and procedures are consistently applied at all sites. Once you have been trained you may volunteer at any site in the PADS network.

Strict enforcement of PADS guest rules minimizes the possibility of unpleasant situations. Personal safety is important and before any situation is allowed to escalate to an unsafe condition, police will be summoned. Other volunteers are always available for assistance and support. Health experts do not believe there is any abnormal communicative health risk associated with this work. Common sense and basic preventative practices, such as washing hands, can reduce the risk of exposure to health hazards.

Journeys’ youth protocol requires that volunteers in the jobs with guest contact must be at least high school juniors.

Complete a Journeys | The Road Home Volunteer Orientation; indicate All Saints as your preferred site; sign up for an open shift and join us!

PADS Volunteer Training

Before becoming a PADS volunteer and working in a shelter, you must complete an online new-volunteer orientation conducted by Journeys │The Road Home. Youth under 18 will need parental consent before they are allowed to volunteer.

Need More Information?

Send an email to [email protected] or contact one of the coordinators.