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Note to Volunteers
If you need to check your specific volunteer slot (day and time), please call either Tom or Diane. Their cell numbers are below:
Tom Eckman: 434.604.6036
Diane Benham: 434.227.2516
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PACEM’s mission is “To bring together the faith community of the greater Charlottesville area to provide temporary shelter, compassionate support, and access to services to homeless individuals, so they can move to a stable housing solution. This work can only be achieved by forging partnerships in the larger community.”
19 years of helping people in need
We share a compassion for our neighbors in crisis
Church of INCARNATION is Hosting
Dec 31 through Jan 13 IN THE PAC
The PAC will be a safe and loving place where everyone is treated with Dignity and respect. We will be serving 25 men and women each night for two weeks.
DESCRIPCION DE TAREAS DE PACEM (PDF)
“Extending hospitality re-establishes connection, welcoming
everyone into a safe, personal, and comfortable space, a place
of respect and acceptance and friendship.”
Richard Hopkins
History and Philosophy of PACEM
In 2003, Charlottesville clergy and homeless advocates created PACEM after members of the Downtown Ministerial Alliance shared the experience of showing up for work in the morning and regularly finding homeless neighbors sleeping in the doorways.
The 2004 Homeless Census – conducted by the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless (TJACH )– supported the experience of the downtown clergy. Dozens of individuals were living in the streets, in the woods, in their cars, in abandoned buildings, behind garbage dumpsters, or around churches in the middle of winter. With a pressing need for shelter, the Downtown Ministerial Alliance and TJACH joined together. They gave their grassroots initiative the name PACEM – an acronym for People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry, a word that also comes from the phrase for peace: Dona Nobis PACEM.
Based on a rotating shelter model from Richmond, PACEM opened during the winter of 2004. As we prepare for our 13th season this upcoming winter, PACEM has provided nearly 80,000 total nights of shelter for people who are homeless in our community. Along the way, we have learned that homelessness is not simply “house”-lessness. To be homeless is to lack roots, ties to place, and a sense of belonging. Extending hospitality re-establishes this connection.* (Source: Richard Hopkins)
PACEM believes that a welcoming, safe place to shelter is the first step to addressing the crisis of homelessness. Sharing a compassion for our neighbors in crisis, we bring the members of nearly 80 congregations and groups together each winter to address the need for shelter in our community.
Our Mission
PACEM’s mission is "To bring together the faith community of the greater Charlottesville area to provide temporary shelter, compassionate support, and access to services to homeless individuals, so they can move to a stable housing solution. This work can only be achieved by forging partnerships in the larger community.”
Learn More About PACEM – WATCH PACEM VIDEO
It is a Shelter of Last Resort
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