ST. LOUIS – A memorial service to remember the homeless people who died this year was held in downtown St. Louis Saturday morning.
The service led by the Reverend Larry Rice of New Life Evangelistic Center Inc. included members of the community, many of whom he said currently live out on the streets.
“We involved them in this service because they’re the ones who knew these individuals, some of them on first named basis,” said Rice.
“We were reminding the community that homeless people are dying out there, we’ve counted over 20 homeless people who have died this year.”
Among the crowd was Michael Baron who shared with Fox 2 his personal experience of when he used to be homeless.
“It’s tremendously difficult and everything is a struggle,” said Baron, “whether it’s food, shelter, clothing, bathing, you just pretty much lose everything.”
Baron said that while he has been able to leave that life behind, he continues to encounter many others who are still living it.
“I do think that more can be done,” Baron continued, “I don’t think it takes a tremendous amount of resources, it’s just caring people that have some commitment and realization that we are all human beings.”
It’s that realization and commitment that was apparent at Saturday’s gathering where those who are less fortunate got to take advantage of some useful resources.
“We are helping them with bus tickets today,” Rice said, “we are helping them with gloves and hats and food items that are prepackaged and of course a lot of blankets and a lot of connections to help people get off the street.”
