When most people step outside to confront winter’s cold, the first thing they want to do is go back in.
But what if they couldn’t? What if there was no place they could go to escape the elements? What if they had no choice but to sleep outside in windy, sub-freezing conditions?
Winchester’s third annual Coldest Night of the Year (CNOY) event, a fundraiser for the Winchester Area Temporary Transitional Shelter (WATTS) program, gave hundreds of participants the opportunity to experience, albeit briefly, what it’s like to be homeless, vulnerable and struggling to survive.
“This is such a fantastic event and a great tradition to help those in need, and I’m honored to be a part of it,” said U.S. Rep. Ben Cline (R-6th District), who traveled from his home in Roanoke to participate in Saturday evening’s walk that began and ended at Braddock Street United Methodist Church, 115 Wolfe St. in Winchester.
“This is a great event every year and I don’t want to miss it,” added Winchester Mayor Les Veach. “It’s a good cause.”
Cline and Veach were among 611 walkers from 87 teams who traversed one of two courses — one 2 kilometers, the other 5 kilometers — that wound through Old Town, went up Amherst Street and ended back at Braddock Street United Methodist.
Thanks to sponsorships and donations, participants raised $93,826 this year for WATTS, according to data from the Coldest Night of the Year website. However, Clay Perry, vice president of WATTS’ board of directors, said on Sunday that about $7,000 in cash and check donations had not yet been counted, so the total amount raised is expected to be over $100,000, which would top last year’s total.
“This will help us fund our upcoming 2025-2026 season,” WATTS Executive Director Robyn Miller said on Saturday. “It’s used to maintain and operate the overnight shelter every night of the season.”
WATTS is a nonprofit organization that partners with area churches to provide temporary overnight shelter and hot meals to people experiencing homelessness during cold-weather months. From the first week of November to the last week of March, 35 or more people each night are transported to a participating church that agrees to operate a shelter for one week.
For the current shelter season that ends on March 29, Miller said WATTS so far has accommodated 130 people through its overnight shelter program.
WATTS also operates daytime warming and cooling centers seasonally throughout the year, offering snacks and drinks, a restroom, shower, and other resources available. Since November, Miller said the Warming Center has served 120 people.
Additionally, WATTS offers support services year-round to help its clients become independent and obtain permanent housing.
“We currently have 14 people that have already been qualified through centralized housing intake or already earn enough money to apply for housing,” Miller said on Saturday. “Our Transition Out of Homelessness program has been incredibly busy. In four months, we’ve helped 12 people get identification, two driver’s licenses, six birth certificates. Six guests found employment. We helped three guests move out of the area [to] where they had family and better opportunities … Three guests have entered drug or alcohol treatment … [and] one guest has been housed.”
The Coldest Night of the Year is an awareness initiative and fundraiser that originated in 2011 in Toronto, Canada, and expanded to the United States in 2022. To date, the event has raised more than $84 million to support homeless support initiatives in about 250 communities in North America.
WATTS started participating in 2023. For each of the three Coldest Night events held since 2023, the number of walkers in Winchester has been second-highest in the United States, eclipsed only by the number of walkers in Fredericksburg, VA. But Winchester did come out on top in terms of the number of teams who participated in Saturday’s 58 walks in the United States. The city’s 87 teams was the highest in the nation, followed by Fredericksburg with 84.
The team that brought in the most money for WATTS this year was WINCOG Cares, comprised of 20 people from the Winchester Church of God. That squad collected $6,296, followed by the general WATTS team, Walkers for WATTS, coming in second with $5,345.
To help all of the walkers in Winchester’s Coldest Night event understand why the money they raised was so crucial, one of WATTS’ clients who is currently homeless spoke and shared a bit of what it’s like living on the streets.
“We are right out there in front of life’s storms. Whoever we are and whatever we have is all we have. Dignity is our last thread,” the guest shared.
While WATTS has been overseeing cold-weather temporary, thermal shelter since November 2009, Miller said the goal is to find a permanent year-round home for the nonprofit and its clients.
“We’ve been looking hard and working with the city, trying to find a location we can all be happy with that will house at least 50 to 100 people in a real emergency and provide a safe place for more than five months a year,” she said.
But finding a permanent facility is only part of what WATTS wants to do to better serve Winchester’s homeless population. The organization is also eager to find more housing for people with limited incomes, but the area’s affordable-housing options are few and far between. Miller said that’s frustrating because clients who are qualified to live independently can’t find a suitable house or apartment.
“They’ve done everything right,” she said, “but housing that’s affordable for them doesn’t exist.”
To learn more about WATTS or to support its mission to help the homeless in and around Winchester, visit watts-homelessshelter.org.
