2025 Winter Appeal
2025 Winter Appeal
With your support, we are a light that continues to give warmth.
Dear Friend,
Winter has a way of revealing truth. It strips the world bare — trees, streets, hearts. It opens our eyes to see the vulnerability and truth around us. Through the longer darker days, we need to work to find the sun. For those living without warm place to stay, the season arrives like an uninvited guest, carrying the bite of wind and long, unforgiving nights. And yet, even in that darkness, light still finds a way.
At NEOCH, we’ve learned that light doesn’t just come from the sun. It comes from all of us who refuse to look away. It comes from every small human gesture that whispers, “You matter.” Every blanket we offer is a spark. Every conversation, every organizing meeting, every moment of connection is a flame passed.
Today, we need to work even harder. Finding light in the darkness of authoritarianism is an arduous task these days. There are funding cuts, the attacks on people living on the streets, the policies of brutal dehumanization. Thanks to your support our work continues, our values solid, and our mission unchanged. However, in these times, it going to take more and we are stepping up!
As federal policies erase trans and gender non-conforming peoples and organizations are attacked for recognizing them and stepping back. We stand up by opening the first ever Temporary Shared Housing for LGBTQ+ individuals experiencing homelessness in our community.
With your support, we are a light that continues to give warmth.
For years, seasonal shelter has been delayed and inconsistent and leaving people out in the cold. We believe that those living on the streets need a warm place to sleep. This year we are buying a building to establish the first ever fully legal, newly renovated seasonal shelter. Winter comes ever year and now there will always be a seasonal shelter for them to get warm.
We see that light takes shape as justice: in tenants standing together for fair housing, in communities remembering those we’ve lost to the streets, in the courage of people rebuilding their lives. And it burns in the compassion of people like you, who believe no one should be left in the cold.
This winter, we ask you to share your light with us. Your gift is more than charity — it’s a promise that no one will face the dark alone.
Your special contribution fuel our work. It will be used to continue until every person has a place to call home.
With gratitude and warmth,
Chris Knestrick
NEOCH Executive Director
