ORLANDO, Fla. — A Sanford church is partnering with several independent organizations to provide more resources for the unhoused population.
It all started with a longtime First United Methodist Church member, Larry Kozak. He and his wife did some volunteer work, and he says he realized how much he enjoyed being a part of a community that gave back to others.
“It’s funny because, you really don’t realize within a community all of the good things that are going on until you start getting involved with it,” said Kozak.
After volunteering, Kozak and his wife created a mission group through their church named Called to Care, providing limited services to people in need. However, he says he quickly realized the need was much greater than what they were offering at the time.
Kozak says he listens to the people they were helping, gathering information on what specific things they needed help with, like medical assistance and getting valid ID cards to name a few. Through networking and visiting other nonprofit organization events, Kozak says he was surprised at how many different resources were available in the community; just that no one knew about them.
Since then he’s been working to bring all the resources to one place; First United Methodist. Turning the church into a one-stop shop where organizations can bring all of their offerings.
“We brought in organizations that were already well established, whether it was in Orlando or a little bit in our city,” said Kozak. "Groups like SALT who does showers and consolation. Aspire, who works with addiction as well as housing. We brought in Health Link who works with prescriptions, they give free prescriptions and they do eyeglasses as well,” he added.
Transportation was also a big need according to Kodak, so he started partnering with local bike shops and other businesses willing to donate used or broken bikes; sparking his journey to repairing them.
“Never really worked on a bike in my life. I’m not the most mechanically inclined to begin with," he said.
Already distributing more than 100 bikes.
"It started out where we did a bike or two, now they’ve got me, calling me the bike man," said Kozak.
On June 30, the church held a ribbon-cutting ceremony in partnership with SALT and local sponsors like AdventHealth, who helped cover the cost of the new shower trailer.
Now, adding those free showers to the weekly resource event. A service Kozak says seems small but makes a huge difference.
Helping hundreds of people a week obtain important things that Kozak says helps them to regain productivity, and for some like Greg Rung, an opportunity to help others in similar situations.
“I found myself actually homeless two and a half years ago,” said Range as he helped prepare vegetables for the food giveaway. “Covid hit me, and I lost my dad, I lost my home, and I lost my career. I ended up in a haul and I realized then how close we all are to being homeless,” he continued.
Runge says luckily, he knew about some of the services provided at the church because he was able to utilize them for himself while directing others on the street to seek services as well.
“Where I thought that I was pretty comfortable with a career of 30 years, a pandemic changed mine and I was on the streets and we’re all very close to that, so having organizations like this is a blessing in so many different ways,” Runge said.
Though he says he’s still technically considered precariously housed, Runge says the church and the resources Kozak has brought to the church were a huge help for him, and they continue to be for a lot of people. An unexplainable feeling for Kozak is one that he says you can only feel by giving back to others.
“There’s no better feeling than serving the community. It’s just, I mean until you’ve done it you wouldn’t understand. It’s a gratifying feeling,” he said.
Kozak says if there is a need and the service is not already provided at the church, they will help to find out where the resources are located in the community and put people in contact with the organizations.