The Van

10/16/2026

Hodgepodge of updates:

•Thank you all so much for your generous and expeditious support the last few weeks. Amongst a whole passel of new monthly donors and immediate one time donations (that I lost count of) was a very generous $10,000 gift from a local couple. We have another $10,000 gift pledged for November. And today we received a stock donation from another very generous couple worth about $50,000!! (That’s right! We absolutely accept gifts of stocks to help fund the work. Reach out if you’d like to hear more about that.)

•Y’all always come through. Saying thank you will just never be enough to match your concern for your neighbors and the generous ways you give to see that people survive. You absolutely do not overcome homelessness (or anything else) if you don’t survive it. I had the honor of bragging on your collective generosity to Shelterforce just yesterday.

•As the team works to wrap up everything at the new shelter building and prepare for winter, we’re now up against the water main not being where it was supposed to be. Off by a lot. As in, this could turn into a bigger and more expensive headache than it has already been for more than a year.

•God bless Kyle & crew at SALT Engineers and Planners. Patience of a saint. Kyle, we owe you the world, man!

•We had a good and productive board meeting tonight. Our board is locked-in and fully realizes the enormous task at hand. We will be having multiple serious and intense board work days to build out a world of corporate policy that I always believed I had more time to get to….until one day my life got changed by another driver. We’ll be scheduling workdays for our board at the beautiful Our House campus as we glean all we can from their knowledge in this realm. We appreciate you Ben, Rachael, and whole crew for your partnership and desire to see this work also succeed long term.

•Carter Thweatt with THV11 will be coming by next week for a little sit down update.

•Thank you for your patience with us. We’re working on it and through it while still trying to meet as much immediate need as possible. Thank you for caring about anyone in our community without safe shelter.

•Until no Arkansan has to sleep outside….

10/13/2026

I feel like after the media blitz of a few weeks ago, I owe y’all a (quick but long) face to face. Many people responded and collectively, it was a huge deal for us financially. Many people purchased us new tools and equipment. It all got us pointed in a safe direction. We have a large pledge coming later in the month. We’re still up against some big things with big bills, and some safety and code matters to rectify at the shelter building, but we have taken a deep breath and allowed a massive swell of support to compel us onward. And so onward this work goes.

As you can likely tell, I function at a fraction of the force I used to be. Good thing it’s a good team. Much help is needed in many ways. Connect with our volunteer coordinator, Sheri Gilbert, via email here: [email protected]

10/13/2026

Thanks so much to everyone at The Geeky Oasis for your generous support of the work of The Van!!

10/08/2026

The easy pipe laying is in, inspected, approved, and covered. Our fire hydrant is in! Next week it’s time to find the main and tie in. Hopefully within about the next 3 weeks we’ll have a live fire suppression system. The last major hurdle.

We want to apologize for any and all inconveniences this causes around the side of the Shell station until we’re finished and it’s all made back right. The crew will go as quick as they can, as safely as they can.

Progress, y’all. Oh! And we found ourselves a fantastic mobile deisel mechanic that got both big rigs up and running for us yesterday and today.

We will now have our “Silver Bullet” 15 passenger AND a new (to us) 30 passenger bus to get folks from all over the metro to the emergency shelter in inclement winter weather and then back to their respective areas when it’s safe again. Hopefully in the days we have everyone together we can continue to build out some professional services and partnerships to reduce the number folks who return to the outdoors after each event and find a stable housing arrangement.

Thank you all so much for sticking it out with us. It has taken a lot more time and a lot more money than we anticipated, but it’s going to be a good thing. A guaranteed safe place for people in central Arkansas for years to come, no matter what any municipality does or does not do. Your generosity is making it happen. We try not to point to it too often but if you can help, here are all the ways at this link. We appreciate any and all considerations. https://itsthevan.org/pages/donate

10/05/2026

My neck is absolutely killing me but I had to get out of the house today for this special occasion! The last leg is underway, friends.

We seriously need a mobile deisel mechanic to help us get two rigs fired up. If you can help, please give us a shout!

10/03/2026

10/03/2026

Thanks for all the generous support this last couple weeks everyone! We’re working diligently to shore up our policies and procedures while keeping all the work going. Digging for the fire water line starts Monday. We are on track to be ready to open this winter. If you’d like to help us with some of those last minute costs and a few fire code corrections, we’re doing a *pre-order* run of tees and hoodies of the very first logo we had. We printed one run of this logo around 2011. So here we are 15 years later still doing this thing. We’d love to see y’all showing this sweet throwback off all over the world! All proceeds of this shirt go to the inclement winter weather building and making it the best it can be! See and order all the colors and sizes here: https://itsthevan.org/collections/fundraising-campaigns

Shipping will likely happen in November when we’ve had time to sell an ample amount of pre-orders. This is a one time thing. It may be another 15 years before you can get this logo again!