Wayside Christian Mission

On Monday, June 12, a fire was spotted at around 4:20 pm in the 500 block of East Caldwell Street. The Louisville Fire Department arrived within 5 minutes. The building was evacuated by 4:45 pm and the front of the warehouse collapsed around 5 pm. It ended as a devastating, total loss.

Wayside Christian Mission owned the 61,000-square-foot, four-story building and it was used for storing the Mission's charity supplies to help the city's homeless. The warehouse's contents-- which are shared between the Jefferson Street Shelter and Hotel Louisville - included new furniture, new carpet, kitchen equipment, linens, and much more.

Perhaps one of the most important losses was thousands of N95 face masks. Wayside played a significant role when Covid hit in 2020 because of the mask supplies they had in storage. Those masks had been donated in 2017 and stored in the warehouse. When the pandemic struck, Wayside was the only shelter with an inventory and they shared with many other shelters, the Homeless Coalition, as well as workers and volunteers.

Wayside is asking for the community's support to help replenish those much-needed supplies.