There’s a moment in the depths of winter that most of us never experience here in La Porte County.
It’s 2 a.m. You’ve been walking for hours, not for exercise, not to raise money, not because you set a goal on an app, but because your life depends on this movement; it is the only thing keeping your blood warm. Warm is a relative term, but you know you can’t remain still. You need to circulate your blood. The wind off Lake Michigan cuts through everything. Your jacket, still damp from the snow earlier, is the only thing to try to break that brutal wind, but it’s not working very well. Your feet stopped hurting an hour ago, you can’t feel the cold in them anymore, and you know this is a blessing and a warning sign; you’re in serious trouble out here in the cold. You know that somewhere, there are warm homes, warm beds, and refrigerators full of food, but none of those things are available to you. Not tonight.
This is the reality for which Nest Community Shelter was built.
In 11 days, at the Coldest Night of the Year 2026, we walk so that the very real scenario above does not become the norm in our community. On February 28th, we’ll gather as a community and step off together at 5 p.m. in Washington Park at the Senior Center, right as the sun begins to sink and the February air starts to bite. We’ll walk a family-friendly 5K through the early dark together, not because five kilometers is a hardship, but because that brief taste of cold air is a reminder. It’s a reminder that for some of our neighbors, cold isn’t an inconvenience or a backdrop for fundraising. It’s a threat to their lives.
Hypothermia doesn’t check whether someone is “trying hard enough.” Frostbite doesn’t wait for morning. Exposure is indifferent to circumstances, backstory, or how someone ended up without a roof over their head. When the temperature drops and there are no buses running, no rideshares in the budget, and no family with a couch to spare, the distance between a person and safety can feel infinite. That gap is where death from the elements lives for our unhoused neighbors.
Nest closes that gap.
We keep the lights on. We keep the heat running. We keep the doors open in Michigan City and La Porte because survival is not contingent on the calendar or the weather forecast. We provide hot meals to people who are fighting just to stay warm. We give beds to people whose bodies are exhausted from the effort of simply not freezing. We offer something that sounds simple but is anything but: a place where someone can stop surviving for a moment, and just rest. In this moment of rest comes the beginning of clarity, that this is no way to live, and help is here in Nest Community Shelter.
This is what your walk supports, and your fundraising dollars make possible: that moment of rest, clarity, and the spark of a new beginning.
On February 28th at 5 p.m., we invite you to lace up your shoes, bundle up, and walk with your team, with your neighbors, with your community, surrounded by people who showed up because they believe no one should face a winter on the streets alone.
And somewhere out there, someone will sleep warm because you did.
