“To Learn the Healer’s Art and Go Forth to Serve.” This is the mission of BYU College of Nursing.
Nursing student, Rebecca Aina recently experienced what it feels like to put this mission into practice as she served unsheltered individuals at a local warming center. Her volunteer shift included helping guests check-in, offering them any food or hygiene items they needed, setting them up with a cot and warm blankets, showing them the shower and laundry facilities, and generally providing them with a safe place to rest.
Provo’s Community Action Services and Food Bank partners with several local organizations to use their locations as warming centers during the cold winter months. Rebecca commented, “The majority of the people we served were those without homes needing a warm place to sleep, but the center is open to anyone who needs a warm place for the night. I learned what a vital resource these warming centers are in a place like Provo that has freezing winter nights.”
Rebecca was also grateful she was able to care for people with the knowledge and skills she has already gained in nursing school.
She shared, “I was able to provide wound care for a man who had split the skin on his elbow from slipping in the shower. I also helped a woman who collapsed in her dizzy and weakened state after having taken too much insulin without taking in any sugar. I was able to explain to the other volunteers the need to get her blood sugar back up, so we propped her up and fed her fruit snacks and juice until she was doing better and could rest comfortably in her bed.”
Rebecca reflected, “It was such a blessing to serve and simply give people a warm place to rest. Though many face other large issues in their life, it was so fulfilling to help them meet one basic need in volunteering at this warming center.”
Professor Brandon Thatcher first connected with warming center initiative leaders in the fall of 2024 after trying to grow relationships between BYU College of Nursing and community partner organizations that work with homelessness.
“This [warming center] program went from 25 or 30 nights last year to over 150 nights this year, so there is a large increase in the need for volunteers,” he shared.
He continued, “We have students in our community health class that will be doing needs assessments with the people staying in the warming centers next semester, which can then inform how we will be better able to help this population in the future.”
BYU College of Nursing seeks opportunities to provide Christlike service and to educate nurses who can use their gifts, knowledge, skills, and talents to serve individuals, families, and communities.