The Zion Shelter and Food Kitchen, Beaufort County’s only homeless shelter, will close in November if new funding sources aren’t found soon.

Opened in 1986, the shelter has served the local and transient homeless population, in addition to serving lunches to anyone in need five days a week. Located in the basement of the Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church on Washington’s Fourth Street, it shelter has 12 beds that are always in demand, according to Harlan McKendrick, the Zion board treasurer.

In recent years, however, funds shelter board members have relied on have dried up in the wake of budget cuts at both the city and state level. While food is donated regularly from many local entities, it’s the operating expense — utilities, supplies and the salaries of the shelter’s only two employees of manager and executive director — that make up the largest expenditure of funds.

“The big ones are the electricity and gas. I just paid the electric bill and it was eleven-hundred and some dollars,” McKendrick said. “The shelter will have to close by Thanksgiving unless more money comes in.”

In recent months, McKendrick has been trying to drum up support to keep the shelter open. When McKendrick approached the county commissioners at the October meeting, they asked him to return with his funding request during next year’s budget meetings; McKendrick said he plans to speak at area churches — the ones that are not already donating — in the coming weeks, but time is running out, he said.

“I really don’t where to look,” McKendrick said. “I’m checking with United Way to see if they’ve got any possible help for us.”

McKendrick has been on the shelter board since it was created nearly 30 years ago. Over the years, shelter funding has seen its ups and downs — three years ago, the shelter was in the same dire situation, but received a $10,000 bequest from a Bath woman’s estate just in time. If no solution is found in the next several weeks, the Zion Shelter board will have no other option.

“We’ll just close down and tell the homeless men to move out,” McKendrick said.

For more information, call 252-975-1978 during shelter hours, from 9 a.m. to noon. Donations can also be sent to Zion Shelter and Kitchen, P.O. Box 2324, Washington, NC  27889.