Four nonprofit groups came together Thursday afternoon to create the first-ever Salt Lake City movie night for unsheltered individuals.
The event was held in the basement of the First United Methodist Church and hosted 30 people Thursday evening, then 75 people Friday night, from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., with several more being hosted over the weekend. People living without shelter were encouraged to gather, get warm, and enjoy watching movies with others suffering similar hardships.
Pastor AJ Bush says that the event managed to get “pretty much everyone” off the streets and into the warmth. According to executive director of the Nomad Alliance, Kseniya Kniazeva, roughly four to seven people have died from the cold in just this past week; including a couple that reportedly froze by the island by Rio Grande and a couple that froze in front of the Gail Miller Resource Center.
Following the success of this first movie night, the Nomad Alliance is desperate for more volunteers and would love it if the community donated items such as pillows, blankets, mats, and snacks. Kniazeva, who volunteered at the event for 17 hours without any sleep, says that there wasn’t any violence and nobody got kicked out from the movie night, people enjoyed what they were given and called the event a miracle.
