When Matt Shaw set a flier on the information desk counter at the Rock Hill branch of the York County Library System last winter, he only expected the event he was advertising to be a one-time thing.
Shaw publishes Speak Up, a magazine aimed at amplifying the voices of people facing homelessness and housing insecurity; and through the magazine, he wanted to meet some writers, pay them for their stories, and publish first-hand accounts of what it’s like to live outside the American Dream.
And again, it was only supposed to be a one-off workshop. But the workshop was such an immediate hit among its attendees that the group kept meeting, every Tuesday (apart from a couple here and there) since March.
The group, which sometimes has a couple and sometimes has a dozen writers show up, eventually became a kind of extended family. It became a place where writers feel safe to be themselves without the pressure of judgment; an antidote to daily life, often spent in shelters or on the street.
In other words, the group became the kind of family that finds itself, not the kind bound by bloodlines and shared histories.
So by the time November rolled around, Shaw and his wife, Lana, knew they were going to have a Thanksgiving meal with this extended, fluctuating family.
On Tuesday, the group met at the Mercantile Exchange, a general store in Rock Hill, as opposed to their customary space at the library. Here, the group could serve food – and here the group certainly did. Tuesday’s writer’s group saw a feast of fried chicken, potatoes, breads, salads, and desserts – for which the more regular set of writers were deeply grateful.
“It means a lot to me to be able to sit down amongst these people and enjoy this time together,” said Michael, who didn’t want to use his last name. He’s been coming to the group for a few months and has found it to be a vital outlet for him.
Ditto, Andrea Faulkenberry, who has pulled herself out of the shelter she was staying in and is realigning her life.
“It’s been really great to have a safe place to express myself and relate to other people going through similar situations,” she said. “This is kind of like my community.”
And for John Robinson, who’s new to the group, being able to sit down and have a meal with new friends is a salve on a troubled year.
“I’m overwhelmingly appreciative,” he said. “Normally, I get with my family, my children and we just go about a traditional Thanksgiving. But this year is different than previous years, I had some setbacks this year.”
For Shaw, this group, continuing long past what he’d expected, has been a balm for his spirit too. He wanted to bring people experiencing housing insecurity and people not experiencing housing insecurity to the table, and on this Tuesday before Thanksgiving, he watched it happen.
“People are going to be dining together, they’re not identifying their housing situation, they’re not limiting themselves in those ways,” he said. “They’re just showing up as people who love one another and want to share together.”
