Chattanooga Community Kitchen keeping shelter open today through Monday during cold snap

photo Gary Vinyard, a Chattanooga Community Kitchen client and volunteer, talks to a Times Free Press reporter at the center on Friday in Chattanooga.
photo Charlie Hughes, executive director of the Chattanooga Community Kitchen, works the desk at the center on Friday in Chattanooga.

The Chattanooga Community Kitchen will open its emergency shelter tonight and again Sunday and Monday for homeless people seeking refuge from dangerously cold temperatures.

Nighttime forecasts in the low 20s tonight and single digits on Sunday and Monday mean people without shelter could be risking their lives outdoors.

Community Kitchen Executive Director Charlie Hughes was manning the intake desk Friday; the paid staffer who normally sits there had worked overnight, he said.

Though the kitchen is in a funding pinch, he said, staff and volunteers will keep the shelter open.

"On days we really perceive it to be dangerous, we're going to go ahead and do the best we can with what we've got," Hughes said.

Read more in Saturday's Times Free Press.

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