MARYSVILLE – The name is the same, but the location is different.

The Marysville Emergency cold weather shelter is still housed at the Damascus Road Church. But the church is no longer on State. It combined with another church and is now at 4011 81st Place NE. Cold temperatures started a little early this year, so the shelter already has been open three days. It opens any time the weather is anticipated to be 32 degrees or below for four hours or more.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Guests receive a free hot meal from 8-9:30 p.m. Some leave, but many stay overnight. There are 25 foam mattresses available. Men sleep in one room; women and children in another. The doors are locked and lights out at 10. Anyone causing problems is turned away. If police bring someone to them after hours they let them in on a case by case basis. In the morning, hot cereal is served from 6-7 a.m., and that’s when the homeless are on their way.

“It’s a well-used facility,” Shelley Sherman said of the rooms the homeless stay in. “As soon as they leave here the Salvation Army (a few blocks away) has a breakfast.”

Different churches provide volunteers on different nights. Damascus Church provides volunteers on Saturday nights, for example. There are three four-hour shifts per night starting at 7 and 11 p.m. and 3 a.m.

Volunteer coordinator Al Muzzy said there is always a need for volunteers to prepare food. The Marysville Community Lunch Group provides the food, but volunteers prep and serve it. That shift is from 7-9:30. Between two and four helpers are needed. Sometimes the weather drastically changes, so it’s the type of situation at the shelter where volunteers need to be flexible. “It was a harsh winter last year. We were open many more nights. The demand was especially heavy,” Muzzy said.

He pointed out that the shelter is open – no matter what the temperature – to give the homeless a special time on Thanksgiving and Christmas.