Home of Hope
Did You Know?
Seattle's Union Gospel Mission serves more than 1,200 meals each day and provides 455 men, women, and children a safe place to sleep each night.
Tanisha Hanson is filled with hope. One reason is Hope Place. The Union Gospel Mission's new apartment facility is smack in the middle of Seattle's ethnically vibrant Rainier Valley. It provides safety, shelter, and recovery for more than 200 homeless women and their children.
Hope Place Kids' Club is where Tanisha has held babies, told stories, and led kids in songs about the good things in life.
"It's the first time I encountered homeless people, especially kids, on a personal level," says Tanisha, a junior from the small town of Port Orchard, Washington, population 8,000. "Happiness is infectious. Simply smiling at kids makes them smile back."
The shocker, though, was what playing with the kids did to Tanisha's education plans. Set as a freshman on becoming a nurse, by her sophomore year at Seattle Pacific University she was coordinating SPU student volunteers for Kids' Club. She decided that by switching her major to sociology, with a minor in psychology, she could better touch the lives of kids like those she'd come to love.
"For some of them, Hope Place is the first bed they've ever slept in, the first time their family could be together. They love having SPU students around," Tanisha says. So does the Union Gospel Mission staff, operators of the homeless center.
Today, Tanisha coordinates Urban Involvement, SPU's connection between student volunteers and 13 different city ministries. A team of 10-15 students helps with homework, crafts, and play time each week at Kids' Club.
Tanisha is excited to have found not only the best fit for her talents and personality, but also that God worked through the women of Hope Place to show her how much he cares for them. "Homeless people are just regular people who struggle," she says. "They have as much to teach us as we have to teach them."
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