Winter Welcoming Center
Project: A warm, no-barrier day shelter, November through April
Request: $15,000
Your gift keeps a warm room open through the winter.
The Winter Welcoming Center, a project of the Jefferson Interfaith Action Coalition, offers a warm and hospitable space for people in need of shelter during the cold months from mid-November through mid-April. It is open seven days a week, 8:30am to 4pm.
What it provides is deceptively simple: warmth, WiFi, use of computers, personal device charging, refreshments and fellowship. It distributes donated clothes, shoes, sleeping bags and camping gear. When available, it provides shower tokens, laundry vouchers and food cards, and works to connect guests with needed services in the county.
Last season — November 5, 2025 to April 19, 2026 — the Center received 5,479 guest visits, averaging 33.21 visits per day.
"No barrier" means what it says
The Center welcomes as wide a spectrum of the population as possible. Anyone who needs a safe place to get warm, have a snack or a hot drink, charge a device, find warm clothes or camping gear, or get connected to other services is welcome.
That matters because of who it reaches: people who, for whatever reason, are not able to enter the wider safety net. Many services require eligibility, documentation, an appointment, or a referral. Every one of those requirements excludes someone. The Winter Welcoming Center excludes no one, which makes it the first — and sometimes the only — point of contact for the most isolated people in the county.
A number of the Center's staff and volunteers have lived experience of homelessness, and some were former guests. That changes the atmosphere of a room in ways funding proposals struggle to convey. The Center's own assessment is unadorned: we believe that we have saved lives.
The front line of the safety net
The Winter Welcoming Center describes itself as a front-line effort that gives guests a chance to catch their breath — and in doing so, often opens a door to other services that can lead to a more stable situation.
That's the underappreciated function. A person who is cold, exhausted and exposed has no capacity to navigate a service system. Somewhere warm to sit for a few hours restores enough steadiness to think about what's next. Warmth is the precondition for everything else.
Two challenges arriving at once
First, growth. With the exception of the COVID years, the Center has served a consistently growing number of guests season over season, and has increased its hours to meet demand. This will be season nine.
Second, and more urgently: the Pope Marine Building, the Center's home for a number of years, will no longer be available — possibly as early as this coming season. A new location must be found, and that presents a significant financial challenge, with rent now an open question in the budget. The Center is also exploring staying open year-round, which would require substantially more funding and staff support.
What your donation makes possible
The Center's budget runs $48,000 for staff, $12,000 for supplies, $3,000 for administration, plus rent — a total of $63,000 before the location question is settled.
Funds received through Give Jefferson are devoted to covering staffing needs. Other support comes from Jefferson County's Affordable and Supportive Housing and Homeless Housing and Assistance Funds, other grants as available, and private donations from local communities of faith, the Co-op's Beans for Bags program, and individuals.
United Good Neighbors provided approximately 24.5% of last year's revenue — roughly a quarter of everything the Center had.
Your donation pays the people who unlock the door at 8:30 in the morning, all winter, seven days a week, and welcome whoever walks through it. Give today.
