MOSES LAKE — A charitable raffle resulted in a $630 donation to the Grant County Homeless Task Force for its warming center.

The raffle was part of the “Jingle Mingle,” a special Business After Hours co-sponsored by the Columbia Basin Herald and the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce. The raffle winner received half the money, with the rest going to a charity. At the request of new CBH publisher Caralyn Bess, Chamber manager Debbie Doran-Martinez suggested a charity to receive the money and chose the warming center, which doesn’t have a lot of fundraisers.

The raffle was the inspiration of CBH marketing consultant Ashley Hoffer. The winner was Dayna Dent, of Moses Lake, who donated her share back to the warming center.

The donation was presented to task force chair Sheila Chilson – and not a check, all $630 in cash. Her eyes widened. “Wow.”

It was greatly appreciated. "We will put this to good use."

The warming center opened Dec. 5. “We’re open December, January and February,” Chilson said, from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. seven days a week. For 2017-18, it’s in the Youth Dynamics building, 106 East Third Ave. As of mid-December, the number of people coming to the warming center is about 20 people per night, about the same as December 2016.

The winter of 2017-18 will be the third for the warming center; 177 different people used its services during the winter of 2016-17. “These folks are all from this area,” Chilson said. “They identify with this area as their home.” For 2017-18 the center has a part-time manager.

Keeping the warming center open seven days a week is a pretty big volunteer effort. “We have about 15 churches that are volunteering their time to staff it and prepare food.” Churches have to find volunteers to staff five-hour shifts each night, along with people to make a meal. Over the winter about 800 people will volunteer to work a shift, prepare food or any other job that's necessary, Chilson said.

“The community has been overwhelmingly generous.” Chilson cited the example of a call for clothing items, especially socks. The task force was inundated with socks – and that’s only one of many examples, she said. The donations have been so generous the warming center is pretty well stocked, she said, but right now could use donations of hot chocolate and instant oatmeal.

There’s no place to store donations at Youth Dynamics, she said, so any donations should be made to Serve Moses Lake, 422 W. Third Ave.

The task force also accepts money donations, Chilson said. Donations should be made to the task force’s account at the Columbia Basin Foundation, 234 First Ave. NW, Suite B, Ephrata, WA 98823, or at the foundation’s website, www.columbiabasinfoundation.org.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].