WINCHESTER — Robyn Miller, interim executive director for the Winchester Area Temporary Thermal Shelter (WATTS), said the charity is “constantly” working on several leads for a permanent, year-round location to shelter the area’s homeless.

“Housing in Winchester just gets more and more expensive,” Miller said on Tuesday. “We’re displacing people all the time.”

WATTS, a nonprofit group, partners with local faith-based organization to provide overnight shelter to people who need a warm place to sleep when the weather turns cold. The program rotates through various churches, a week at a time, for 20 weeks.

Miller, a WATTS board member and former volunteer, recently succeeded Marion Schottelkorb, who died last month. Miller is acting as interim executive director until Jan. 1, at which time she will solidify her position.

She said she would like to be the director that sees “Marion’s vision” of a permanent, 365-day-a-year shelter become a reality.

Progress is being made on that vision, Miller said. The Salvation Army has offered to donate some land, while several churches have offered buildings, she said.

Miller declined to say exactly where the land and buildings are because WATTS’ expansion committee is still studying each site, she said. But it is a primary project the 15-member board is undertaking.

There are more immediate concerns, Miller said. Fundraising is a constant worry, as it takes $130,000 to put on the 20 weeks of programming. The WATTS program will begin Nov. 9.

Expenses include the bus WATTS owns, medical supplies and pay for the night watchmen who stay with the 35 sheltered guests.

Also, First United Methodist Church is moving from downtown, so that location will not be available this year, Miller said. The board has to find another location for that week.

Miller said she would also like to chip away at the stigma of homelessness. While some of the WATTS guests are people with mental illnesses and physical disabilities, more than half of them are people who work jobs in construction or restaurants, she said.

“They go to work every day,” she said, adding that the competition and cost of housing in the area can be so intense that working people cannot afford a place to live.

A member of Braddock Street United Methodist Church. Miller said she was looking for a volunteer opportunity and ended up helping when Braddock Street UMC hosted WATTS. She became a board member about a year ago, she said.

Miller is the only full-time employee of WATTS. Her salary is $52,000, she said.

WATTS can only take 35 people, Miller said. They frequently have to turn people away “and it’s awful.”

She said she was immediately enamored with WATTS’ mission when she started volunteering and hopes to continue maintaining and growing the organization.

“It’s just a meal, a bed and fellowship,” she said. “And it makes such a huge difference in the community.”

— Contact Onofrio Castiglia at ocastiglia@winchesterstar.com
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WINCHESTER — The legacy of Marion Schottelkorb loomed large Saturday night at an event she was helping organize when she died last month.

The event was A Wizardly Evening in Oz, a “Wizard of Oz”-themed fundraiser for Winchester Area Temporary Thermal Shelter (WATTS), the nonprofit overseen by Schottelkorb for nine of its 10 years.

“She was a person of very deep passion and commitment to anything she was involved with,” said Opequon Presbyterian Church Pastor David Witt, who headed the task force of local churches that created WATTS in 2009. “That certainly involved a deep commitment and loyalty to the WATTS ministry.”

WATTS is a program that provides a warm, safe place for homeless people to have a meal and sleep during cold weather, from November to March. Twenty participating churches offer shelter for one week at a time, and shuttle services are provided to transport clients to and from each week’s location. Guests check in at 7 p.m. each night and leave by 7 a.m. each day.

“Our WATTS shelter may be open 20 weeks during the year, but it requires a year-round effort,” Witt said.

Many of the volunteers and donors who keep WATTS running attended Saturday’s banquet at West Oaks Farm Market at 4305 Middle Road in Frederick County. Sue Nixson, who handles marketing for WATTS, said Schottelkorb was key in choosing the location following last year’s fundraiser at the Cloverdale Barn on Cedar Creek Grade.

“We just picked up where she left and continued on with the plans for tonight,” Nixson said on Saturday.

Schottelkorb’s spirit also drove the creation of a new award to honor an individual for his or her outstanding support of the nonprofit organization. The first Marion Schottelkorb Volunteer of the Year Award was presented to Jon Eye, president of Mover Dudes in Winchester.

In announcing the award winner at Saturday’s fundraiser, WATTS board member Robyn Miller said Eye was “truly the man behind the curtain” — a nod to the fictional “Wizard of Oz” character created by author L. Frank Baum.

“Most volunteers have never met him, but he has been to every one of your shelters and is crucial to your success,” Miller said.

Eye and his moving company volunteer each week during WATTS season to transport the nonprofit’s bedding and equipment from church to church.

“If we had to pay a mover to do this, it would cost us $354 a week. That’s over $7,000 a shelter season,” Miller said. “He has done it for free the past three years.”

“It’s easy to do things for the community when you have such an awesome leader like that,” Eye said, referring to Schottelkorb, who died on July 6.

Since WATTS is a faith-based organization, Witt offered a prayer thanking the woman whose compassion and example inspired all of the attendees at Saturday night’s fundraiser.

“Marion has left us a sincere and genuine legacy,” Witt said, “and we pray that we would take that baton and go into the future.”

By BRIAN BREHM The Winchester Star
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