Help Keep Our Homeless Neighbors Cool & Safe This Summer

Summer heat can be dangerous for anyone, but it poses a serious risk for people experiencing homelessness. Without access to shelter, air conditioning, or even basic hygiene supplies, staying cool and safe becomes a daily challenge. The Central Oregon Homelessness Alliance (COHA) is stepping up to help by sponsoring a collection of essential hygiene items designed to keep our homeless neighbors cool and protected during the hottest months. You can join this effort between July 18th and August 8th by donating much-needed supplies or contributing in other convenient ways.

Why Keeping Cool Matters for People Experiencing Homelessness

Extreme heat can cause dehydration, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. For people living outdoors, these risks multiply because they often lack access to clean water, shade, or cooling devices. Basic hygiene products also play a critical role in preventing infections and maintaining dignity. By providing items like bottled water, cooling scarves, and wipes, we help reduce health risks and improve quality of life.

What Items Are Most Needed This Summer

COHA has identified specific items that make a real difference in helping people stay cool and safe:

• Toilet paper

• Wet wipes for cleaning and cooling skin

• One-gallon bottles of water to stay hydrated

• Cooling scarves that provide relief from heat

• Fruit snacks, cups, and pouches for quick energy

• Feminine hygiene products to support women’s health

• Individual bottles of hand sanitizer to maintain cleanliness

  
  

These items will be collected and distributed to local programs that serve people living in camps, including REACH, Shepherd’s House Share Van, Open Door Ministries at Bend Church, and Family Kitchen.

How Your Donations Reach Those in Need

COHA will pick up donated items weekly from collection points (faith organizations that are participating). After collection, the items are carefully prepared and delivered to partner organizations that work directly with people living outdoors. This ensures donations reach those who need them most without delay.

If you know other organizations that assist people living outside, COHA welcomes your suggestions to expand the reach of this effort.

If your church or faith-based community is participating, you can follow their instructions for drop off. Anyone can drop off donations at Westside Church, 2051 NW Shevlin Park Road, Bend, OR 97703 during office hours: Monday - Thursday, 9 am- 2 pm

Ways to Contribute Beyond Dropping Off Items

Not everyone can drop off supplies in person. COHA offers two additional ways to help:

• Make a donation online

Visit COHA’s donation page and specify “Hygiene Collection” in your donation. COHA will use these funds to purchase needed items for the project.

• Shop from COHA’s Amazon account

Select items from a curated list and have them delivered directly to COHA. This option makes it easy to contribute even if you cannot shop locally.

Shop COHA Amazon Collection

Both options allow you to support the cause without needing to handle or transport items yourself.

Why Your Support Makes a Difference

Each donated item helps someone survive the summer heat with dignity and safety. For example, a single gallon of water can prevent dehydration during a long, hot day. Cooling scarves provide immediate relief and reduce the risk of heat-related illness. Feminine hygiene products and wipes help maintain health and comfort, which are often overlooked needs.

By joining this collection, you become part of a community effort that directly impacts lives. Your generosity helps reduce suffering and shows that our neighbors are not forgotten.

How to Get Involved on July 18th and August 8th

Mark your calendar for the collection days. Gather the items listed above and prepare them for pickup. If you are part of a community group, workplace, or faith organization, consider organizing a group donation to multiply your impact.

Spread the word to friends, family, and colleagues. The more people who participate, the more supplies COHA can distribute.

Every Story Matters - Felicity

Felicity lived in China Hat for years. Maybe that isn’t quite accurate; she has never really lived anywhere. She doesn’t have a car or trailer; she spends each night in a different place. During the day she wanders around talking to the voices in her head.

She doesn’t know what town is nearby, or even if there is a town nearby. She says she moved from The Country of California. 

When she sees outreach workers with food and clothes, she comes over to see what they have to offer. She is usually barefoot, even in the snow. When offered shoes, she rarely takes them.

She was moved out of China Hat like everyone else, told to go, but not told where to go. She was seen in town for a few weeks but lately she has been wandering around Dirt World. She has good days and bad days, or maybe it is bad days and worse days. Sometimes she is just wandering, talking to the voices. Other days she just stands screaming and crying. Without a place to sleep, no possessions except what she has picked up that day, barefoot in the snow, every spring it is a surprise to see she is still alive.

Every Story Matters - Chris

Editor’s Note:  Following is a substack article written by Mandy Bryant, who is the longtime partner of Chris Daggett, the subject of this article.  Mandy and Chris were among those displaced from China Hat when it closed.  Mandy and Chris were able to find a place to live in their 5^th Wheel and are now actively engaged in helping others experiencing homelessness.  Mandy has a podcast that focuses on letting those who have not experienced homelessness hear the background stories of those who are currently experiencing homelessness where oftentimes one small turn of events puts them on the streets.

Displaced by a Moment – The Story of Chris Daggett

A Builder of Bend:  If you drive through the Central Oregon town of Bend, you are looking at the physical legacy of the man I have loved for eight years.  Chris is a third generation Bend resident with roots that run deep into this high desert soil.  For his entire life, he has been a craftsman in construction.  On that drive, he will point a porch here, a custom kitchen there, a roof, or a detailed mosaic tile job and say, “You see that right there, I did that.”  His hands have quite literally helped build the silhouette of the city we call home.

The Service of a Lifetime:  Long before he experienced displacement, Chris’s life was defined by service.  He spent years in Search and Rescue, specializing in high-stakes environments like swift water and rough terrain.  He was part of a group called when people needed help in the forest.  It didn’t matter if the call was for a rescue or a recovery, he volunteered to risk his own safety to bring neighbors home to their families.  Whether it was volunteering for Habitat for Humanity or a local nonprofit called Healing Reins, Chris lived by a simply philosophy – to live his life for others.

The Breaking Point :Stability, however, is often more fragile than the wood and stone Chris works with. 

 He describes the “tipping point” not as a single event, but as a slow, heavy saturation.  Imagine holding a wet paper towel in the air.  The towel is the fabric of life.  One by one, you start dropping marbles onto it – each one representing the weight of a struggle.  For Chris, one marble is for a struggle with severe depression and anxiety that feels like a physical heart attack.  Another is for the devastating separation from his children after a 14-year relationship ended.  A third for private health care challenges.  You can see the water soaking in; you can see the fibers stretching thin.  You keep adding marbles, hoping the towel holds, until one drops onto the pile making it too much, and the whole thing tears through the center.  That is how it happened for Chris, how he found himself homeless.

The Man by the Fire:  The transition into the woods was not easy.  He was now living the same life as the people he was ridiculing just weeks before.  Not on clue how to get by, Chris was quickly introduced to the selfless humanity of the unhoused.  Offering him food, sleeping bags, tents, and on one occasion one even offered Chris a second chance at life.

During a deep winter night, Chris reached a point of total exhaustion and passed out in the snow.  He believes, in that moment, he was ready to let go, that he was done with it all.  But he was saved by a man named RA, a staple of the local unhoused community who had lived along the canal for years.  RA found him, dragged him back to  his own camp, and placed him by the fire to get him warm. It was a moment of radical humanity from someone who had almost nothing to give, yet gave everything to save a life.

Ingenuity in the Woods:  Even in displacement, Chris remained a builder.  During the closure of the China Hat area south of Bend, Oregon that displaced around 200 of the unhoused, he used his “backyard engineering” skills to fix vehicles and electrical systems for others.  He also  helped tow 32 different vehicles, helping his neighbors move their entire lives because that’s what a neighbor does.  “People needed help, I had a truck that could pull, so I helped.”

No matter how big his heart is or how many people he helps, Chris struggles to have people see him as anything but homeless.  The most painful part of his journey wasn’t the cold, it was the “othering.”  It was the “rotten fruit” thrown at him and his children by a passerby when parked at the hospital while he received medical care for a severe illness.  Chris found himself being denied a bathroom at a local Chevron while buying fuel for his community.  Even after those events and many others just like it, Chris refuses to become jaded by them.

Where We Are Now:  Today, Chris is no longer just surviving the winter, he is helping others navigate theirs.  We are currently working together on S.H.I.F.T. (Supporting Housing Integration and Future Transitions), an initiative born from these exact lessons of ingenuity and lived experience.  He continues to use his hands to build, but now he is building systems of support, ensuring that when the fibers of a neighbor’s life start to stretch there is a community there to catch the weight.

After eight years by his side – I witnessed his journey from a man who felt worthy of nothing but the negative to a man who is driven by his morals and determined to do the right thing and help where others refuse.  Chris defines dignity and the heart of our mission with these words:

“Dignity is the inherent right of every person to be treated with respect and valued 

just for existing.  It’s you knowing your worth and the humanity you give to others, \

no matter where they sit economically.”