Philadelphia’s large-scale homeless shelters are not always a good fit for single women. This past winter, The Welcome Church and a number of partners opened “The Well,” a new-concept micro-shelter, to provide a warm and safe place for a dozen women. The concept worked better than expected, with The Well able to serve a total...
June 12, 2017
The Well Helps Women Find Housing
Philadelphia’s large-scale homeless shelters are not always a good fit for single women. This past winter, The Welcome Church and a number of partners opened “The Well,” a new-concept micro-shelter, to provide a warm and safe place for a dozen women. The concept worked better than expected, with The Well able to serve a total...
February 9, 2016
‘Dust Is Not the Final Word’
The crosses marked on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday are signs of both life and death. The ashes suggest our eventual return too the dust, but “the dust is not the final word,” says Welcome Church Pastor Violet Little. At an Ash Wednesday service on Logan Park in 2013, Pastor Violet told her flock “What...
February 9, 2016
Welcome Church Shelters ‘Women of the Well’
The Welcome Church is collaborating with a number of partners to provide nighttime housing for women experiencing homelessness in Center City. The shelter, called “the Well,” will open at the Church of the Crucifixion at 8th and Bainbridge Streets on Sunday, Feb. 14. It will offer a place for gathering and renewal from 7:30 pm...
January 17, 2014
Welcome Threads: Sharing Wisdom and Talent from the Streets
The Welcome Church, a church without walls ministering with people experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia, has started a social enterprise known as Welcome Threads that builds community, teaches job skills and provides participants with some income. “The main thing people want is a purpose,” said Pastor Violet Little, lead pastor of Welcome Church. “They want to...
November 11, 2013
Little Receives 2013 Purpose Prize
Welcome Church Pastor Violet Little honored with prize for people over 60 solving tough social problems. The Rev. Violet Little, pastor of Philadelphia’s Welcome Church ministering to people experiencing homelessness, is one of seven winners of the 2013 Purpose Prize, which honors people over 60 who are using their “second acts” to make a...
June 20, 2012
Suit Challenges City’s Ban on Feeding Homeless
Pastor Violet Little of the Welcome Church and leaders of three other religious organizations have joined in a federal lawsuit challenging the City of Philadelphia’s ban on feeding homeless persons along Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Open-air activities such as the coffee hours following Welcome Church services along the Parkway are necessary “because that’s where the people are, and for so many who choose not to be inside it is the opportunity for relationship,” Little says.
July 3, 2008
Center City church welcomes homeless
The Welcome Center at Holy Communion Lutheran Church is a safe haven where the city's homeless could step out of the cold and find a place to wash or sleep, to find someone to talk to for a while without being chased. The Welcome Center is not just a feeding program but a place for engagement, and lives are transformed in this sanctuary.
