Podcast Episode Details

Teri Dupuy-Gore, Hub Lafayette Urban Ministries

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Our guest is Teri Dupuy-Gore, Executive Director of Hub Lafayette Urban Ministries, a Christ-centered outreach serving our neighbors experiencing homelessness, chronic poverty, hunger, and difficult life transitions.

Teri shares how The Hub and its Lovewell Center at 1515 W. University Avenue in Lafayette, create a place to be present in our community and love people right where they are, offering not only practical resources but dignity, relationship, and restored hope.

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The Lovewell Center: Eat Well, Dress Well, Style Well, Smell Well

Teri explains that Hub Lafayette Urban Ministries “actually unifies two separate ministries,” and that this conversation focuses on The Lovewell Center at 1515 W. University

Within the Lovewell, members access four resource “stores”:

• Eat Well – “kind of like a Walmart where you can get toothpaste, toilet paper, nonperishable canned goods, things of that nature… like a mini Walmart.”
• Dress Well – gently-used men’s and women’s clothing: “belts, shoes, pants, coats… new socks and new underwear… gently used backpacks.”
• Style Well – “where you get your hair cut by a licensed beautician or barber.”
• Smell Well – “our six stackable commercial washers and dryers so you can wash your clothes.”

All of these resources are available to members of the Lovewell Center.

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Membership & the Points System: “A hand up, not a hand out”

Becoming a member is intentionally simple: “To be a member, you simply have to walk in and say, hey, I want to be a member. There’s no criteria.”

When someone joins, the team takes basic information: name, phone number (if they have one), address (or notes if they’re living on the streets), and next of kin — “because we want to become your family… we want to be your family anyway.” New members “automatically get 20 points for just joining us.”

The Lovewell uses a points system instead of cash so people can actively participate in their own progress: “You earn points by taking classes because we believe in healing and helping yourself… or you’d bring us your check stub from a job that you have now

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Published on 1 month, 1 week ago