On a bright Saturday morning in late August, dozens of people from the Country Creek Ward, Layton Utah Holmes Creek Stake, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered inside their local meetinghouse in Layton, Utah, to put together vests for homeless people.
The vests have a special foam insulation that keeps the wearer warm, even on the coldest winter nights.
Hundreds of wards, youth groups and families have gathered for similar service projects with the Turtle Shelter Project since 2017. Many of those volunteers found the project through JustServe.org, a website and app where volunteers can find service opportunities around them and community organizations can list their service needs.
With the help of volunteers, thousands of vests have been distributed to homeless people and those in need.
Jen Spencer, the organization’s founder, said the project wouldn’t be possible without her own experiences with homelessness and her battle overcoming addiction.
20 years of addiction
Spencer grew up in the Church but said she had a “warped understanding of repentance.”
“Really early on in my life, I felt like I was buried under this huge mountain of sin that I couldn’t get out of,” she said. “And I felt like it made me unworthy of a relationship with God.”
Spencer said she started smoking at age 15. When she tried drugs for the first time, she was immediately hooked. She spent the next 20 years of her life in what she calls “hopeless addiction.”
“I just kind of accepted it and quit trying to connect with God and stopped repenting,” she said.
Spencer was homeless on and off several times during those 20 years of addiction.
“The times that I was homeless in the summer were pretty unbearable, but it was the winter that literally brought me to my knees,” she said.
Spencer singles out one particularly difficult winter — in 2014, while living in northern Utah — when she was ready to give up. Spencer said she didn’t feel like she had it in her to try, so she decided to end her life.
On her way to carry out her plan, a friend texted her the video of a song by a Latter-day Saint artist, which she watched and thought about the message.
“So I decided at that moment I was going to give this prayer thing a chance,” she said.
Spencer said she told Heavenly Father all the things she was sorry for, all her fears and struggles. She then asked if He was real and if He still cared about her.
“And these words came to my mind that just said, ‘Jen, do you know how long I’ve been waiting? Please, just give me a chance to help you with what you’re dealing with,’” she said.
That moment changed everything.
“That’s when I realized I was a daughter with a divine identity, like I was taught about in Young Women [classes].”
Spencer also realized that in order to overcome her addiction, she had to want it more than anything else she had wanted before in her whole life.
“But I didn’t have to do it alone, and I knew it without a doubt.”
Rehabilitation and a desire to help others
Spencer was able to get into a rehabilitation program. While there, she attended an emergency preparedness conference and learned about the foam insulation technology to stay warm, even in extreme cold and wet weather.
“Three months before, I was sitting in the coldest winter I’d ever, ever experienced,” she said. “I just got excited that this technology existed, and I wanted to buy a bunch and give them to all my friends.”
Spencer soon learned that a full-body suit would cost hundreds of dollars, crushing her dream to buy them for those in need. But she didn’t give up. She told everyone she knew about her idea to use the technology to help others. She even met with the inventor, who explained how she could make modifications to cut down on costs without sacrificing warmth.
“It helped me make the most effective piece of clothing that would keep people alive and alleviate suffering but still be inexpensive and easy for volunteers to help us make.”
While continuing to work on this project — and her rehabilitation — her bishop encouraged her to pursue family history.
“Which I thought was really weird,” she said.
But as she worked with the bishop’s wife, Angela Roth, on family history, she learned that Roth was a great seamstress.
“I told her all the info I had gotten from the inventor, and she transformed it into something just amazing,” Spencer said. “She designed this beautiful vest.”
Spencer sees the timing of their meeting as divine, and Roth said that at the same time, she was also looking for a way to use her skills to “help somebody that has nothing.”
“I had actually written that down,” Roth said. “And just prayed and said, ‘If there’s an opportunity for me to use my skills to really make a difference in someone’s life, I would love to have that opportunity.’”
Roth and Spencer worked for months on several prototypes. They had two goals: first, to make sure the vest would be functional for keeping people warm, and second, that the vests could be made by volunteers of all ages.
The final design they landed on is a vest filled with foam insulation. It goes past the hips and includes several pockets. Each step of making the vest can be taught to and done by volunteers, including youth and young children.
“We wanted to make it so anybody at any skill level could help. So we broke it down. You can sit down, and you can do one step, and after you’ve done it for an hour, then you’re confident and having a good time,” Roth said.
It took two years for the Turtle Shelter Project to take off and develop into what it is today. And those two years gave Spencer time she needed to get sober.
“And learn how to repent and develop an understanding of repentance and that relationship with Christ,” she said.
Turtle Shelter Project
Making the Turtle Shelter Project something volunteers could easily pick up and contribute to was another point of divine inspiration, according to Spencer.
She calls it a “traveling service circus.”
And Spencer is the ringmaster in the middle of service projects. She’ll teach the steps to volunteers and then stand side by side with them to make sure the vests are made to the highest standard.
In Layton in August, Spencer’s younger brother Joseph Shannon watched his sister in action.
“It’s actually pretty miraculous,” he said. “To see who she is now and to see the testimony that she has and the hope that she is for so many people, it’s amazing.”
Shannon is also proud of how his sister is living the gospel. Spencer is an ordinance worker in the temple and is in the Relief Society presidency in her stake.
“It’s pretty awesome to watch and to see her growth,” Shannon said.
After the vests are assembled, are sewn together and pass an inspection, another group of volunteers with the Turtle Shelter Project will take the vests out into local communities to hand them out to people in need.
Brent Coles has helped with those efforts for several years in and around the Salt Lake City area.
“You get to put your arm around a homeless person and give them a vest; that’s the cool thing of it,” Coles said.
Beyond the tangible donations, Spencer hopes her story of learning to rely on Heavenly Father to overcome her addiction can help others.
“There is no question in my mind that God is real. He knows our names, He knows the things we’re struggling with. He wants us to bring it to Him and lay it at His feet, and He wants to help us overcome these challenges that we have,” she said.
