ALAN HITSKY ASSOCIATE EDITOR
GLENN TRIEST PHOTOGRAPHY
e Homelessl
Each month, Temple
Beth El volunteers
serve COTS clients.
Paul and Alex Nefouse help in the kitchen.
emple Beth El members believe they get
more out of the visits than they put into
them.
Once a month, members of the tem-
ple's brotherhood and their families help
prepare and serve a Sunday lunch at the
Coalition On Temporary Shelter (COTS)
south of the Detroit Medical Center in
downtown Detroit.
The monthly visits involve temple
members serving 90-125 persons at the
homeless shelter on Peterboro, just west
of Woodward.
"I love doing this, I'm a kibbitzer," said Buzz
Turner, organizer of the COTS visits. "In the sum-
mer, I take my kids and their friends so that they
can see what other people's lives are like. For me,
charity is part of being Jewish."
Temple Beth El has been sending volunteers
to COTS for four years, and its members also reg-
ularly help the homeless served by the Baldwin
Avenue Church in Pontiac. The brotherhood an-
nually buys, prepares and serves Christmas din-
ner at the Baldwin soup kitchen.
For Jewish Detroiters, the brotherhood spon-
sors a monthly Bingo game for residents of Bor-
man Hall and annually provides the fixings for
Thanksgiving dinner to Jews who have arrived
recently from the Soviet Union.
The volunteers who go to COTS arrive between
10 and 10:30 a.m. on a Sunday to prepare for the
11:30 a.m. cafeteria-style lunch. COTS serves up
to 300 meals each day and charges those who can
afford it $1 a meal. Tem-
ple Beth El members
contribute $125 toward
the meal its volunteers help Above:
Debbie Canvasser,
prepare.
Sister Cecilia Marie Dr. John Marx and
Zondlo, COTS director, said Eric Canvasser serve.
the organization serves Right:
130,000 meals a year and The Canvassers make
its housing facilities "are al- it a family event.
ways full. We turned away
2,000 people last year because we were at ca-
pacity."
In addition to 140 beds in the converted hotel
on Peterboro, COTS has other facilities for 56 per-
The brotherhood volunteers
monthly.
sons in a two-year program to make individu-
als self-sufficient, plus 26 beds for long-term
elderly.
The average stay on Peterboro is 8 days for
homeless individuals and 14 days for families.
Thirty to 35 percent of the persons helped by
COTS are children.
Eric Canvasser, one of the Temple Beth El vol-
unteers last week, commented, "Every time we
go there, they are most appreciative." 0