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.

The Winchester Area Temporary Transitional Shelter (WATTS) held its annual Caring & Sharing fundraiser on Oct. 19, 2024 at Elks Lodge 867, with about 165 people in attendance. WATTS’ overnight shelter season begins Nov. 2. Awards were presented to: Love to NIC, nonprofit of the year; Billy Sous, small business partner of the year; Elks Club 867, civic group of the year; 2024 President’s Award went to Johnny Blue Inc.; Volunteer of the Year was awarded to Tami Light (pictured here between WATTS board President Mike Ashby and WATTS Executive Director Robyn Miller). A special presentation was made to Greenwood Fire Company and the Cunningham family in memory of Walt Cunningham, the namesake of the WATTS golf tournament, for their longtime partnership with WATTS.

Saturday evening was cold, wet and miserable.

In other words, it was the perfect night to experience, at least for a short while, what it’s like to be a homeless person in Winchester.

The nonprofit Winchester Area Temporary Transitional Shelter (WATTS) held its second Coldest Night of the Year walk on Saturday. The event raised money for its programs to support the homeless and give people an opportunity to step in the figurative shoes of a person who has nowhere to turn for shelter and survives on whatever food is provided by churches and charities.

“You will walk past the [WATTS] guests who have to sit at a bus stop for an hour in this same weather,” WATTS Executive Director Robyn Miller said as the walkers assembled inside Braddock Street United Methodist Church at 115 Wolfe St.

The Coldest Night of the Year is an awareness initiative and fundraiser that originated in 2011 in Toronto, Canada, and since then has generated more than $75 million in contributions to help the homeless populations of 190 Canadian communities. The event expanded into the United States last year, and WATTS participated in the inaugural event with more than 400 volunteer walkers.

In terms of participants and money raised, WATTS ranked second in the United States last year among all the communities that held Coldest Night of the Year walks. The local effort was only eclipsed by the city of Fredericksburg.

This year, Miller said she wanted to be first among all 40 participating locations in the U.S. — and she nearly was. Winchester had 719 walkers and raised $114,656, which was 176% of WATTS’ goal of $65,000, but Fredericksburg led the nation with 770 walkers and $169,051 in contributions.

Even though Winchester came in second nationally for the second year in a row, Miller said participation in Saturday’s walk was “beyond my prayers. I just couldn’t have imagined.”

“We were expecting about 600 [walkers],” WATTS board member and Coldest Night of the Year event chairman Clay Perry said.

Miller said the money raised Saturday was enough to cover a quarter of WATTS’ annual operating budget. That will allow the nonprofit to continue its mission of serving the homeless with temporary overnight shelter and meals during cold months, daytime heating and cooling centers with snacks throughout the year and ongoing services to help them regain control of their lives and obtain permanent housing.

“Every time they (clients) apply for an apartment, it’s a $40 fee. Every time they get an ID, it’s another $10 fee,” Miller said. “We pay for all of that.”

Most participants in Coldest Night of the Year walks are part of a team comprised of family, coworkers, fellow church members and so on. In Winchester, Southside Church of Christ fielded the biggest team with 38 walkers, followed by Winchester Medical Center‘s School of Medical Imaging with 29. It could be argued, though, that New Life Christian Church had the most participants because it fielded three separate teams with a total of 61 walkers.

“They sign up as different teams to challenge each other and raise more money,” Perry said.

Among the walkers were a host of local and state dignitaries including Winchester City Councilors Les Veach and Emily Windle, Frederick County Supervisor John Jewell, Frederick County Circuit Court Clerk Sarah Kahle, Winchester Sheriff William Sales, Frederick County Sheriff Lenny Millholland, Del. Bill Wiley (R-Frederick County) and Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.

“This is not something that is new to me because I ran a homeless shelter for women and children when I lived in Hampton Roads,” Earle-Sears said. “I wanted to be here. … WATTS is what happens when people say, ‘Somebody ought to do something,’ and then they realize they are that somebody.”

Earle-Sears commended WATTS for having the foresight to recognize that area churches could be utilized as temporary shelters during cold-weather months. The nonprofit is able to accommodate overnight guests through the winter thanks to a rotating roster of churches and community organizations that partner with WATTS and allow use of their facilities for one week at a time.

A former client of WATTS also shared his story of going from the streets to his own apartment.

He said he took a “leap of faith” and left his home in Washington, D.C., to move to Winchester. However, a lack of affordable housing forced him into homelessness for several months before he found his own dwelling.

“I’ve seen both sides — having shelter and not having shelter — and believe me, there are really good people living without,” the employed man said. “You can’t always judge a book by its cover because everyone has a story.”

The 719 people who had crowded onto Wolfe Street outside of Braddock Street United Methodist Church then stepped off for their walk through Winchester. Participants remained together until they reached the intersection of Amherst and West Boscawen streets, where they split into two groups: One that followed a 2-kilometer course, and a second that took a longer 5-kilometer route.

Despite a cold, steady drizzle, walkers had high spirits. That was particularly evident when Sabra Veach of Winchester skipped her way across Amherst Street, a huge grin on her face.

All the cold but happy walkers eventually returned to Braddock Street United Methodist Church for a simple meal of soup, exemplifying how people who are homeless sometimes have to subsist on the most basic food items — if they can find any food at all.

To learn more about WATTS, visit watts-homelessshelter.org or Coldest Night of the Year at cnoy.com/winchester.

Area residents on Tuesday awoke to a blanket of snow. For many, the winter wonderland was a pretty sight, but for those who are homeless such conditions can be life-threatening.

Especially those who might not have been able to find a warm place to spend the night.

According to the National Weather Service, the forecast for Winchester calls for temperatures at or below freezing every day until Monday.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be homeless in the dead of winter, you’ll soon have the opportunity to find out.

The occasion is the Coldest Night of the Year (CNOY), which is not a meteorological prediction but an annual fundraising and awareness walk to be held nationwide on Feb. 24.

Locally, Coldest Night of the Year is hosted by Winchester Area Temporary Transitional Shelter (WATTS), a nonprofit organization that provides area residents experiencing homelessness with overnight shelter during cold weather, a daytime center during cold/hot weather, and support programs to help clients regain their independence and find housing year-round.

“Winchester was second in the nation last year, and we’re hoping to be first in the nation this year,” WATTS Executive Director Robyn Miller said about the 400-plus participants in last year’s Coldest Night of the Year walk, when the only locality in the United States with more walkers was Fredericksburg. “Our goal is to have over 700 walkers.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, 134 people had signed up to participate in Winchester’s walk. If you want to help boost that number, Miller said you can register for free at watts-homelessshelter.org and choose to walk a 2-kilometer or 5-kilometer route. You and your friends, family and/or coworkers can create a team, but if you’re going it alone, you’ll be welcome to join the Walkers for WATTS squad.

After signing up, participants are encouraged to find sponsors who will make a donation in the amount of their choice in exchange for the walker completing his or her selected route. Some nationwide employers including Costco, Walmart, the Home Depot and Starbucks all have matching donations available to any of their employees who walk and fundraise. (To find out if your company offers matching funds, visit cnoy.com/matchingfunds.)

While this year’s walk is still more than a month away, Miller encourages anyone interested to sign up as soon as possible so participants will have more time to find sponsors. All proceeds from the walk will benefit the programs and services offered by WATTS.

Miller said both the 2K and 5K routes pass through the Loudoun Street Mall in downtown Winchester and a bus stop where WATTS clients are picked up and driven to an overnight shelter.

“We walked past a lot of people experiencing homelessness [last year], and when they [walk participants] realized that’s who they were helping …,” Miller said, her voice fading as she began to cry. “We want those people experiencing homelessness to know that we really do care and we’re walking around Winchester to support them.”

Personnel from Rouss Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company will lead off the walk, which Miller emphasizes is not a race so participants don’t need to hit the gym before helping the homeless.

“It’s a wonderful time,” Miller said.

Both routes start and end at Braddock Street United Methodist Church, 115 Wolfe St., where walkers will be served a simple meal of soup, bread and a beverage afterwards. The point, Miller said, is to replicate the experience of a homeless person whose only sustenance comes from a soup kitchen serving free food.

The Coldest Night of the Year walk is open to people of all ages, but children 12 and under must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Due to insurance regulations, pets are not allowed to join the walk unless they are trained service animals.

Miller said everyone who comes out for Winchester’s walk on a cold February evening will leave with appreciation and sympathy for their neighbors who are homeless.

“You’ll be walking around in their [figurative] shoes, in the cold, having to move all the time,” she said.

To learn more about WATTS and the Winchester walk on Feb. 24, visit watts-homelessshelter.org. Information about the national Coldest Night of the Year fundraising and awareness event is available at cnoy.com/winchester.

Thanks to the community’s generosity and the enduring memory of a beloved woman who passed away too soon, Winchester Area Temporary Transitional Shelter (WATTS) now has nearly $57,000 to help it support, protect and assist the area’s growing population of homeless residents.

On Thursday morning at Braddock Street United Methodist Church in Winchester, the philanthropic organization Cheers to Charity presented a $50,000 check to WATTS, a local nonprofit that provides overnight shelter during cold weather, a daytime cooling center during hot weather, and year-round support and guidance for people transitioning from homelessness to a secure future.

That check presentation brought tears of joy, but what followed brought about tears of another sort.

A second check was for $6,770 and represented donations made in memory of founding Cheers to Charity board member Kim Rhodes, who died on Nov. 1 after a brief bout with cancer. Her obituary asked mourners to celebrate her life by making a donation to Cheers to Charity to support WATTS and the response was tremendous.

“She was one of those people that if she saw a person in need, she would stop the car and check on them,” her husband, Greg Rhodes, said on Thursday. “She was a very unselfish person.”

WATTS Executive Director Robyn Miller said the money donated to WATTS by supporters and Rhodes’ friends and family will help fund a variety of the nonprofit’s shelter, support and transitional programs.

Currently, WATTS is operating an overnight shelter for up to 40 people per night. Accommodations are offered on a weekly basis by local churches that set up cots and comfort items within their facilities. Since some of the churches are not in walking distance from downtown Winchester, WATTS offers transportation, with a bus that picks up clients in the evening and returns them to Winchester in the morning.

Thursday’s check presentations were held at Braddock Street United Methodist Church at 115 Wolfe St. because that’s where this week’s WATTS shelter is set up.

Braddock Street United Methodist is a large facility with plenty of room for 40 or more cots, which is good because Miller said the local homelessness problem is growing due to rising rents and higher home values.

“We have a lot of guests with mental illness and a lot of guests with addictions, but we also have a lot of guests who are working but there’s no [affordable] places for them to live,” Miller said. “We have a guest here who works for the city of Winchester but can’t afford an apartment in the city of Winchester.”

Even if someone can afford current housing prices, Miller said, there is a significant shortage of homes to rent or buy because the Winchester area has become a highly desirable place to live.

“When something does come on the market in a normal price range, it’s gone,” she said. “When you don’t have any family here or someone to rely on, you’re homeless.”

Cheers to Charity has been in existence for more than a decade, but it wasn’t until two or three years ago when it became widely known in the Winchester area. Its members started off by hosting numerous fundraisers to help a variety of local nonprofits, but in 2021, the organization shifted its approach and started focusing on a single charity each year.

The first result of that new approach came in January 2022 with a $30,000 check presentation to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, which addresses food insecurity in the Shenandoah Valley. The following January brought a $40,000 check for Froggy’s Closet, which provides clothing, school supplies, enrichment activities and more for children who are underprivileged or in the foster care system.

Check No. 3 was delivered on Thursday and even the ten Cheers to Charity board members were impressed by the nearly $57,000 raised for WATTS in the year 2023.

But to be clear, they were impressed, not content.

“My goal is giving a charity $100,000,” said Jeanne Mezzatesta, board chair for the all-volunteer Cheers to Charity. “The more we can raise, the more we can give.”

Cheers to Charity hosts numerous fundraisers throughout the year including a happy hour, a meet-and-greet during the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival, day lily sales and a concert. Last year, Mezzatesta said they added a golf tournament that hopefully will grow in prosperity as it grows in popularity.

The annual process of selecting a nonprofit to support begins in September, when Cheers to Charity invites local nonprofits to apply for financial assistance. Board members review the applications, pare them down to five or so, then vote for which group they want to help that year. Representatives from the top three groups are then asked to give presentations about their organizations and how their volunteers could assist with various fundraising efforts throughout the year, then Cheers to Charity members vote again to make a final selection.

Mezzatesta said this year’s beneficiary will be Concern Hotline, a 24-hour crisis intervention organization the serves Winchester and the counties of Frederick, Clarke, Warren, Shenandoah and Page.

To make a donation to Cheers to Charity on behalf of Concern Hotline, visit cheerstocharityva.org.

You can learn more about Concern Hotline at concernhotline.org, and information about WATTS is available at watts-homelessshelter.org.

Even though we’re still in the midst of the hottest summer on record, it’s time to start thinking about the cold months ahead and how the area’s homeless population will survive.

WATTS, which changed its name in October from the Winchester Area Temporary Thermal Shelter to the Winchester Area Temporary Transitional Shelter, will host its fourth annual “An Evening of Caring and Sharing” fundraiser Saturday to collect a portion of the money it needs to continue housing and caring for people experiencing homelessness in the Winchester area.

“It’s one of our largest [annual] fundraisers,” Robyn Miller, executive director of WATTS, said on Tuesday. “It’s just a fun night.”

“An Evening of Caring and Sharing” will be held from 5-11 p.m. Saturday at the Winchester Moose Lodge at 215 E. Cork St. Tickets are $50 each and can be purchased at the door or in advance at watts-homelessshelter.org.

Proceeds will benefit the nonprofit organization that has been offering overnight shelter for the homeless from November through March since 2009 — a service it provides in conjunction with local churches and community groups that volunteer to house the WATTS program for one week at a time. To make sure guests can access the rotating shelter locations, WATTS offers a free shuttle service based in downtown Winchester. The upcoming overnight shelter season begins. Nov. 4.

Last winter, Miller said WATTS served a total of 225 people at its overnight thermal shelter locations and daytime warming center. It also hosts a daytime cooling center in the summer.

The overnight shelter could be in even higher demand this winter because the Winchester Salvation Army isn’t currently housing people at its shelter on Fort Collier Road. The Winchester Rescue Mission is the community’s only year-round shelter at the moment.

WATTS, which has an annual budget of $350,000, must raise enough money not only for its temporary thermal shelter program, but also for its recently launched year-round initiatives to transition people out of homelessness by helping clients obtain documentation such as birth certificates and IDs, fill out job applications, schedule medical appointments, find affordable dwellings and more.

“We had to hire more staff because it was more needed than we realized,” Miller said of the WATTS program to transition people out of homelessness. “They work year-round and around the clock to help people. … It can take a long time to get someone from homelessness to housed. And it takes a lot of support afterward — we don’t just help them get in a house and walk away. We keep trying to support them to make sure they stay successfully housed because it’s difficult.”

Additionally, WATTS operates a daytime cooling center each summer so people with nowhere to go can find relief from the heat. In the winter, a daytime warming center is offered to protect the homeless from the cold. Both centers are located at Market Street United Methodist Church at 131 S. Cameron St. in Winchester, and the people who utilize them are treated to snacks and beverages whenever they visit.

“WATTS has grown, which is a wonderful thing, but it also means we have to raise a lot more money,” Miller said. “Also, our goal has always been to have a building of our own and that takes a lot of money, so we’re fundraising very hard to achieve our goals.”

Miller said Saturday’s “An Evening of Caring and Sharing” is a great way for area residents to help the area’s homeless while having a good time.

“Shag band is playing and there will be good food, lots of raffle baskets, and more” she said.

There will also be a cash bar, dancing, a live auction, awards, a selfie station and guest speakers who will highlight the importance of WATTS and its mission to serve the local homeless population.

When asked for a recent example of how WATTS helped a client get off the streets and start a better life, Miller spoke of a man who had utilized the nonprofit’s thermal shelter the past two winters.

“He finally agreed to go into rehab in Lynchburg and he knocked it out of the park,” Miller said. “He ended up getting a job down in Lynchburg and found housing in a sober-living home. He’s still there, happy and successful.”

To learn more about WATTS and Saturday’s “An Evening of Caring and Sharing” fundraiser, visit watts-homelessshelter.org.

It’s winter. You go outside, you get cold, you come inside, you get warm. Simple, right?

Not if you’re homeless. In the winter, many homeless people go out in the cold and stay there for hours, days, even weeks.

Area residents now have an opportunity to commiserate with the plight of the homeless while also making sure the area’s most disadvantaged residents always have a warm, safe place to go during the day or night. On Feb. 25, the Winchester Area Temporary Thermal Shelter (WATTS) program is hosting its first Coldest Night of the Year Walk to support its year-round operations.

“It’s an international walk that raises funds for organizations that help the hurt, the hungry and the homeless,” WATTS Executive Director Robyn Miller said on Tuesday. “It also raises awareness that every place has a problem with homelessness. There’s always someone homeless somewhere.”

The Coldest Night of the Year (CNOY) originated in 2011 in Toronto, Canada, and since then has raised more than $57 million to help the homeless populations of 166 Canadian communities. The event expanded into the United States last year, and WATTS will be participating in it for the first time next weekend.

“We’re very excited,” Miller said. “We’re closing in on 200 walkers. We would love to hit 300 because that’s when I need a police escort.”

Anyone who wants to join the walk, scheduled to step off at 5 p.m. Feb. 25, will have the option to choose a 2-kilometer or 5-kilometer route, both of which start at Braddock Street United Methodist Church at 115 Wolfe St. in Winchester. Participants are encouraged to line up financial sponsorships or donate money to help WATTS, but contributions are not required. However, anyone who raises $150 or more will receive a free Coldest Night of the Year beanie (or, as it’s called in Canada, toque).

“It’s open to everybody — children, families, businesses, whoever would like to come,” Miller said.

Children 12 and under must be accompanied on the walk by a parent or guardian, and the only pets that will be allowed are approved and trained service animals.

Along with raising money for WATTS, walk participants will learn what it’s like to be homeless in Winchester. Be prepared, though, because few things in life are more difficult than being displaced, desperate and disregarded.

“They have to walk all the time because they have no place to go,” Miller said, adding that the majority of stores and public buildings in Winchester do not want homeless people in or near their facilities.

In addition to being unwelcome, homeless people are often hungry and have no other option but to seek free meals from local churches or nonprofit agencies like Winchester Rescue Mission or the Salvation Army of Winchester. Coldest Night of the Year walkers will also get a free meal after completing the event, but don’t expect beef Wellington and risotto.

“It will end at Braddock Street United Methodist Church, where New Life Christian Church will be hosting a soup kitchen,” Miller said. “It will be a very simple meal of soup and bread.”

Miller said it’s important to feel compassion for the homeless.

“There are more homeless people out there than people realize,” she said. “You have the chronic homeless — people who have been homeless for a long time or the person holding a sign. You have the transitional — people that come in and out of homelessness. You have people that have had a traumatic event — a fire, a death in the family, a disability, a job loss — and can’t afford rent anymore. And then there are the hidden homeless — people who are living in their cars or a storage unit — who, if they lose their [living] arrangements, have no other place to go.

“You are probably standing next to somebody at [a store] who is homeless, and up to 30% of those people are children,” Miller said.

To register for the Coldest Night of the Year Walk or learn more about the event, visit watts-homelessshelter.org.

WATTS launched in 2009 as a means to convert local churches into temporary shelters that provide overnight accommodations for the homeless during the winter months. Each participating church offers free meals and a place to sleep for one week, then another church picks up the mantle the following week.

In 2020, WATTS added a daytime warming center where people can escape the cold, get snacks and water, use a restroom and have other basic needs met. That was followed in the summer of 2021 with the opening of a daytime cooling center that offered the same amenities during hot weather. Both centers are located at Market Street United Methodist Church at 131 S. Cameron St. in downtown Winchester.

WATTS also has a transition support team that formed in late 2021 and works year-round to help displaced people obtain birth certificates and identification, apply for jobs, submit forms for housing assistance, get information about drug and alcohol rehab programs and seek Medicaid, Medicare and SNAP benefits.