At ‘Volunteer-Driven’ Warming Center, a Volunteer Explains Her Path to Service

Going for a walk near her home in Kalispell in 2019, Lanni Fetveit came across a man hanging blankets to dry on a fence while he tried to fix his bicycle in the cold. He looked like he might need help. She went home to get him some hot chocolate and an apple before returning to see if she if there was anything else she could do for him, like run an errand somewhere to pick up a bike part.

The man was immediately defensive even though she hadn’t accused him of anything. She hadn’t even had a chance to offer him the apple or the cup of hot chocolate. The experience stayed with her long afterwards, prompting her to consider how a person must have been treated by society to react so defensively without provocation.  

 “That kind of started something in my heart, saying ‘Lanni, you don’t need to be afraid of these people. You can be a human being to them and let them know that you see them as another human being,’” she said.  

Later that year at her church, Fetveit learned there would be a training session at the Flathead Warming Center for people who might want to volunteer. The choice was simple for Fetveit, a 72-year-old former staff member and sign language interpreter at Flathead High School. The shelter does have a small group of paid staff, but Director Tonya Horn sees it as a “volunteer-driven” operation. The need for volunteers at the center becomes clear in the context of just how many people are served there on a regular basis. Last season, when the warming center was open from October through April, 349 different people were served.

So far this season the center is frequently at or near its 50-person nightly capacity, Horn said. During the 2021 through 2022 season, the center had to turn 186 people away because of capacity issues. As of Dec. 14, 149 people had been turned away from the center because it had already reached capacity. The Warming Center is seeing an increase in the number of elderly guests and young families this year, according to Horn, who is planning on attending a Dec. 21 event at Depot Park to commemorate Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day.

 “I really would love for the community to understand the moment of humanity that is right there at that door, that can be a lesson to us all, when you see people stepping out of line giving up their bed for a female, or someone in a wheelchair, or someone with a disability,” Horn said. “The homeless community together, they really care, and they take care of each other and there’s a lot we can learn from them.”   

During the 2021 through 2022 season, volunteers contributed more than 2,500 hours of their time to the warming center. For Fetveit, who grew up in the Flathead, she volunteers at the center once a week in the morning for a couple of hours, often making the drive up from Somers while listening to Christian radio and, as she put it, “hoping that my heart is open to whatever comes.”

Her volunteer shift at the center can entail tasks as simple as helping get breakfast started, lending a hand when it comes to cleaning up, or helping someone connect with the services they need. Making someone a bowl of hot oatmeal, for example, can open the door to a conversation with a shelter patron. There are moments of laughter, and moments where painful emotions surface. It’s those conversations that are at the heart of Fetveit’s connection to the shelter. It’s a chance to look people in the eye and “let them know they are a human being.”

“It gives me great joy,” she said.

Fetveit has long been a service-minded person, calling it an offshoot of her faith — she attends Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church in Bigfork — and the way her parents raised her to be involved in the community and take care of other people. In particular, she said her father, a banker named Clarence Allen “Bucky” Boon, was a well-known community member and modeled for her how to be a friend to others.

She has continued to watch the Flathead Valley change and, with it, the needs of its residents who are most vulnerable. She’s seen the community’s attitudes shift, too. She doesn’t remember seeing homelessness while she was growing up in Somers. Now, she notices not only its presence in the valley, but the way unfamiliar faces continue to appear at the warming center. She knows there are people the valley that are afraid, or frustrated with the presence of unhoused people, but that’s not the attitude she has adopted.

“If you try to get to know people, and you try to get to know what’s being done, and open yourself up to getting educated, rather than just having opinions, then yeah, your heart can change. Your heart can change towards it, you know?” Fetveit said. “I’ve got lots of good friends that are in the church and doing great things, but they aren’t comfortable doing the things that I do. But this is just one of the things that God has opened up my heart to do. Not everybody has to be Lanni.”