'Sleep Out' Seeks To Raise Funds For Warmth Program
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Temperatures dropped to below freezing overnight, but participants in “Sleep Out 2015” Friday slept in their cardboard boxes and tents on the county courthouse lawn anyway for a good cause. The Greater Warsaw Ministerial Association hosted the event from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. today to raise awareness and funds for the Winter Warmth program. Winter Warmth is the Combined Community Services program that provides funding for utilities for low-income residents during the winter months. CCS Director Steve Possell said a similar event was held about five years ago on the courthouse lawn. “I did it five years ago – slept out on the courthouse lawn in a cardboard box, just kind of to raise awareness that there’s people out there who don’t have utilities assistance,” Possell said. “We do it because we have people come in every day that ask – we can’t help everybody, we don’t have enough money – and there’s people that come in and say, ‘I haven’t had my utilities on for two months’ or ‘I feed my kids instead of pay the utilities.’ So we’re just trying to raise awareness that that’s a problem out there.” He said CCS gets no federal money for it, but does get some United Way funding for utility assistance This year, like years in the past, Kosciusko REMC has provided some matching funds. If the community gives $5,000 for the Winter Warmth program, REMC will match that and give $5,000. “They used to do it years ago. It’s called Tent City. It’s just to bring awareness to homelessness and utility assistance,” Possell said. People can send donations to CCS at 1195 S. Mariners Drive, Warsaw, IN 46582. Put “utilities” in the memo line. “We have money to match,” Possell said. If $10,000 is raised, it would pay for about 50 families’ utilities this winter, he estimated. “We’d like it as soon as possible because it’s getting colder now,” Possell said. “I had someone in my office the other day, she hadn’t had her utilities on for a month. You can do that when it’s 70 (degrees) out, but when it starts to be 30s at night, it gets cold and it gets colder than that.”
