Volunteer help sought to create vests for the homeless

IC photo/Marie Mischel

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Jen Spencer, founder of the Turtle Shelter Project, and Angela Roth, a board member for the organization, work on sewing machines at Give Me a Chance in Ogden to create vests that will be among the 500 that will be distributed at the Oct. 25 Project Homeless Connect event in Salt Lake City.

OGDEN — Jen Spencer knows the fear and hopelessness brought on by being bone-chillingly cold. A recovering meth addict, she was homeless on a couple of occasions during the past 25 years, “the last one being in a brutal winter,” she said. “When you’re so cold you can’t even think, you’re hopeless. Everything is such an overwhelming obstacle when you’re cold on top of being broken and down.”

She was feeling overwhelmed and broken and down five years ago, despite being in recovery. She called a friend for help, only to learn that the friend had just died from breast cancer. At the funeral, Spencer met another woman who said the deceased asked her to be Spencer’s friend. Knowing the woman had a good spiritual life, Spencer asked for advice to repair her own relationship with the Almighty – a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she had stopped practicing the faith at the age of 15. Her new friend told her to pour her heart out to God.

Spencer took the advice. She found an isolated place and told God all her thoughts. She almost stopped because she feared someone would find her talking to herself, but then continued, asking for the desire to quit her addiction, to make her desire for God more than the desire for drugs. Then, “I felt this hand squeeze my heart and just lift me,” she said. “I have hung on to him ever since.”

Part of that hanging on to God has been to establish a nonprofit organization that creates hi-tech vests capable of keeping the homeless warm in inclement weather. The vests, with a shell of ripstop nylon and polyester mesh, are insulated with foam. The foam acts as insulation that uses the body’s own heat to keep a person warm.

“Even if you get wet, if you’re wearing this and you’re not wearing cotton with it, you have the ability to maintain your core body temperature no matter how cold it is,” said Spencer, who got the idea for the vests from a product she saw at an emergency preparedness conference.

“Hearing about this, my mind just got flooded: ‘Man, so many people’s lives could be saved!’” she said.

Not too long after the conference, she asked God in prayer how she could help him. The answer was to make the vests and get them into the hands of homeless people. Wanting to oblige, Spencer finished her sobriety treatment and “waited for God to lead me to the right people.”

One of those people is Angela Roth, a seamstress with 35 years of experience. The two met through church. Roth, who had been sewing ballroom costumes for someone who had recently closed up shop, was wondering how to use her sewing skills to help people. Spencer asked Roth to create a prototype vest, and a week later they embarked on what is now the Turtle Shelter Project.

“Just like a turtle carries its shelter with them, these vests are portable shelters that people can take with them,” Roth said, explaining the name.

The business incorporated as a nonprofit a little more than two years ago, on the second anniversary of Spencer’s sobriety. She and Roth are both board members. For the first few years they used their own money to make the vests, but more recently they have received a few grants, the latest of which is from Project Homeless Connect Salt Lake City, which has asked for 500 vests.

Spencer and Roth sew many of the vests themselves. Every Thursday they meet at Give Me a Chance in Ogden, where they use the industrial sewing machines that are part of GMAC’s program that teaches women professional sewing skills. However, the Turtle Shelter Project also organizes events for volunteers to help make vests.

“We have projects for ALL ages and abilities and for groups of all sizes from corporate events, small businesses, non-profits, church groups, school clubs and neighborhood friends,” states the organization’s website, turtleshelterproject.org.

“Our goal is not just to make warm clothing, life-saving clothing for people, it’s to give people opportunities to serve in a meaningful way,” said Spencer, who has enrolled in college and is considering earning a business degree.

To complete the vests to be handed out at the Oct. 25 Project Homeless Connect event in Salt Lake City, a sewing day has been scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 28 (see the information box on p. 3).