Madison1122web

A SHOWER POWER UPDATE
Envisioning a
Masterpiece
Sarah Rein
There is a short story by J.R.R.
Tolkien called “Leaf by Niggle.”
In it, the main character is an
artist named Niggle who loves
to envision his life’s great work
- an exquisite painting of a tree
in the middle of a forest.
He pays an obsessive amount of attention
to a single leaf - laboring to make it the very
best it can be. But life is forever interrupting
his focus. He has a lame neighbor with a sick
wife who frequently needs his help. He can
never quite get his work to take shape. And,
before he knows it, he is called away on a long
journey he has been putting off. Niggle is
unprepared and frustrated that his work has
never come to fruition. But, to his astonishment,
when he arrives at his destination, his tree is
waiting for him…the tree he had seen in his
mind but had never been able to form into
reality. Every feature is perfect. Every color,
expertly chosen. Everything so much better
than he was ever able to make it in his lifetime.
When Teresa Renkenberger had the
inspiration for Shower Power in 2019, it started
with the moving story of befriending a homeless
man named Benny who needed a place to get
clean. She purchased a box truck with plans to
turn it into a mobile shower unit—and then
immediately brought her good friend Mary
Ann Kirby on board.
And so began the creation of their “leaf.”
Teresa Renkenberger
Like Niggle, they have paid a great deal of
attention to the details of their project. And
despite starting out as a potential solution for
just one man, Shower Power’s ministry has
now provided nearly 4,000 showers to people
and added a food pantry and clothing closet.
On Fridays, local churches, companies, and
organizations partner with Shower Power to
provide a meal to roughly one hundred members
of the homeless community. And in October
of 2020, Project Hope was created as an
extension of the ministry. Project Hope
identifies which of the unsheltered Shower
Power visitors would be good candidates for
a sponsored move to low-income housing–
and then supports them for a time as they
transition from life on the streets.
Mary Ann Kirby
Working through Challenges
Life has thrown them unexpected curveballs in
much the same way as it did Niggle. In February
2021, that came in the form of historically low
temperatures. Operations Manager Mary Ann
Kirby recounts that event. “Teresa called me one
morning, and we talked about what it would look
like to put some of our people in hotel rooms.
We made a post on Facebook about raising $50
per night to get people in from the cold. We
figured we’d raise enough to put 25 or 30 people
up. We ended up putting 137 people in hotels
for eleven nights straight. And paid cash for it...
all of which was donated in the span of about
48 hours. Then, in January of 2022, we did it
again. But this time we rented the entire Red
Roof Inn. 150 people that would typically be
unsheltered spent a total of 22 nights inside.”
Hometown MADISON • 47