attendees slowly make their way to their seats before Heart for the Homeless begins.

Iberia Homeless Shelters Heart For The Homeless event successfully met its sponsorship goals.

The goal of Heart for the Homeless is to cover their annual insurance fees. This year they raised roughly $20,000.

Coach Jake Jacob and the Westgate baseball team served food and acted as servers throughout the night. Councilman James Trahan and Anointed Soulfood cooked for the event and Councilman Warren Gachassin donated food and drinks.

Councilwoman and board member Brooke Marcotte, also announced a t-shirt fundraiser event for the homeless shelter. Anyone interested in purchasing a shirt may contact the Iberia Homeless shelter directly. Shirts are $27.

Several people spoke at the event, including board member Greg Mullen, Dr. Keith Ramsey and Executive Shelter Director Stephen Etienne.

Board member Mullen started off his speech highlighting the work and dedication Director Etienne puts in to serve the community. According to Mullen, Etienne helps others because “that’s someone’s child that we need to help”.

“If you get the opportunity, go by the shelter. There hasn’t been a time where I’ve gone by that Stephen wasn’t helping somebody or the staff is always helping people. We sit, often times, in awe of everything he is able to accomplish as executive director to help those people,” Mullen said.

Mullen stated that the Iberia homeless shelter isn’t just for New Iberia, but also serves St. Martin and St. Mary Parishes as well. To match the broadness of the groups they serve, Mullen reiterated the need for Etienne’s proposed renovations to the shelter to establish family pods.

“That’s where we need to go, because it’s not necessarily just a man or woman that’s homeless, it’s the family, so we need to do what we can to try to get that going forward. Raising that money is hard to do… but realistically, that’s where we need to go, and Stephen’s the man to do it,” Mullen said.

After dinner, Iberia Comprehensive Community Health Center Mental Health Director, Dr. Keith Ramsey, addressed the guests.

Every day, Dr. Ramsey sends out inspirational messages to his family, staff and friends across the U.S. He said the reason everyone was at the event is to encourage, so he brought a pad of 100 inspirational quotes for the guests, but his message goes deeper than that.

“To those people who are out homeless on the streets, they need a hand up and not a hand-out. That’s what we are here about. That’s a part of the message,” Dr. Ramsay said.

For the last 22 years that Dr. Ramsey has served patients, many of them experienced homelessness.

“I had a lady that I saw two weeks ago that I was like, did you find a place, did you get in, and yep, she’s not homeless anymore. But I remember when she was living in her car. I remember the guy who was living under the bridge, so I see those patients every week and I try to inspire and encourage with positive messages. That’s what we are all here for. We are here to encourage, we are here to inspire and we are here to show love. We have to be more patient,” Dr. Ramsay said.

In his speech, Etienne invited people who went through the shelter and their families to share their stories. First, he invited C. David. David had been through the system multiple times, but Etienne never gave up on him. On his fourth pass through, David totally changed his life. Now he’s over two years sober, works a stable job, lives in a stable environment and even got married.

“I’m very grateful to the Iberia Homeless shelter and Mr. Stephen and I do encourage everyone to donate because if it weren’t for that place, I’d probably be dead or God knows where else,” David said.

Etienne said the board of directors, staff and clients would like to thank the community for their continued support.

“If any one of you wants to stop by the shelter any time, please do, and once again, thank y’all,” Etienne concluded.