SHOWING LOVE, CARING FOR THOSE IN NEED, ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS AND SUSTAINABLE 

For the last 12 years Olympia Downtown Nightshift has served the homeless community late nights between 3am-6am, providing blankets, clothing, coffee, food, etc. for anyone in need.  During these hours temperatures drop and people of all ages are left stranded with no other options for assistance, often huddled in doorways and on the street, wet and freezing with nothing to keep them warm but the damp clothes they wore all day.  

I've made it my mission to go out nightly to find all these people and, as resources allow, help in any way I can, caring for their needs until the morning comes and other services open again.  

This all starts with offering a cup of coffee, a simple gesture which not only helps to immediately warm them up, but also opens the door to conversation, to find out what other needs they have for that night - a blanket, sleeping bag, a coat, hoodie, or full change of clothing, a warm meal, or even first aid supplies.  It's been a continued joy of mine to watch people's reactions to this service - at first always cautious and suspicious of someone offering a free drink and asking what they might need, but quickly evolving to looking forward to the nightly arrival of hot coffee and hopefully a blanket or coat I can can provide immediately.

Keeping enough blankets and clothing for EVERYONE on the street can be extremely difficult! On average I can easily go through 10-15 blankets per night, every night, (a minimum of easily 200 blankets / month) and just as many coats / hoodies.   After years struggling to keep anywhere near this amount on hand, I realized that constantly chasing clothing and blanket donations was never going to be able to fill this need and I needed a better way to keep things stocked, cheaply and readily available.  The answer was simple!  

People need new blankets every night because when sleeping outside, blankets will get too wet and dirty often after just one or two nights use, and many of them get soon discarded, ending up In alleys, and dumpsters, destined to be more waste in a landfill.  Hundreds of blankets a month - good quality, large, warm, blankets, as well as all necessary clothing for everyone, wasted as trash while people freeze on the street, desperate for something warm.

So for years now 75-90% of all resources we distribute are RECYCLED MATERIALS.  We walk around and collect as many of these discarded items as possible, put them through the washer and dryer, and redistribute CLEAN, warm, good smelling blankets, etc, to those in need in the late night.  This has proven to be the most financially and environmentally responsible way to keep enough supplies, giving what would have been refuse a new life, another chance to keep someone warm.  And even with the cost of water, power, detergents - everything that goes into washing and drying - its a tiny fraction of the price of purchasing these things, even used.

Nonetheless, all this laundry still costs money, in addition to coffee supplies, and a small work facility to operate out of. For years most funding for all this has been out of pocket.  And I frankly can't afford this any more, not enough money to cover all these costs, and as a result not enough of the resources necessary to keep this going.  It's heartbreaking to walk around and see people trying to sleep on sidewalks freezing with nothing to keep them warm and dry, and having nothing to offer them but a pair of socks and coffee.  

I COULD easily have enough blankets, sleeping bags, and clothing for EVERYONE, every night at a relatively low cost. The resources are right there, readily available, just waiting to be recycled and redistributed.  I just can't fund it all myself.  I NEED HELP! 

So this year, please help people stay warm in the rainy, cold nights of Washington by supporting the Olympia Downtown Nightshift, the ONLY LATE NIGHT HOMELESS OUTREACH ORGANIZATION serving downtown Olympia.