This year’s Longest Night Homeless Persons Memorial Service will be held on Wednesday, December 21st.  

We will gather at 3:00 p.m. on the Capitol Square at the intersection of East Main, South Pinckney Street and King Street. We will hold a brief outdoor service and then proceed around the Capitol led by a horse drawn hearse.

This gathering place is near the bench where 38 year old Dwayne Warren’s body was found on June 16th, 2009. Dwayne was experiencing homelessness, he died of sepsis, a blood infection that could have been treated with a simple antibiotic prescription. Dwayne’s death helped bring the community together to create this annual event.

We are asking for donations of warm socks, long underwear, scarves, gloves, and hats. Donations can be dropped at First Congregational United Church of Christ at 1609 University Ave. Madison. Please enter through the rear door off of the parking lot. The church doors are open during the day as the daycare in the building is open. Individuals entering must wear a mask.

Each year we like to create memorial cards for each of the individuals remembered at the event, and for those who may have passed and been remembered in previous years. Eventually we would like to create a Remembrance Wall that would include these cards and could travel to various locations to serve as a traveling memorial to those we mourn. While the service is primarily intended to remember our neighbors who were homeless when they died, it is also a place where people who are formerly or currently homeless can remember others that they lost but were unable to attend a funeral or memorial service.

With that in mind, we are asking that, if you have someone you would like remembered at the service, that you provide us a little information about the person, their gifts, interests, qualities you admired, anything you would like to share.