Winter Warmth is October 25, 2025!

There are several ways to get involved in Winter Warmth.

Volunteer 
Jobs include set-up crew, greeters, shopping assistants, parking attendants, and more. We also need translators, especially those who can help communicate with Eastern Slavic- and Spanish-speaking families. Click the button below to sign up!

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Donate: This year, there are three ways you can donate to Winter Warmth!
1. Financial Support - Click the button below and choose to donate a coat or accessories!

2. Bring Donations of Newly Purchased or New Handmade Gloves, Hats, and Scarves to Church - Drop your donations in the bins in the Tower Room and the Family Life Center lobby

3. Purchase Gloves/Hats from the FPC Winter Warmth Wish Online List - New this year! Click this link to purchase online and have these items shipped to the Winter Warmth Team. 

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Pray
Pray for those in our community who may be struggling to make ends meet. Pray for the guidance counselors, teachers, and all who support these families on a daily basis. Pray for the Winter Warmth team and volunteers and that each person will see God’s love on October 25.

History of Winter Warmth

Thirty years and 40,000 coats later, First Presbyterian Church Spartanburg is still striving to keep Spartanburg County school children warm. Winter Warmth began as an initiative of the church’s Peace and Justice Committee in 1995. The program originally focused on distributing shoes and gently used coats. During the second year, 783 pairs of shoes and 200 coats were distributed, yet there was a desire to reach a larger number of children and to meet more specific needs.
 

Over time, a well-organized, comprehensive identification and distribution system has been developed, and now every year the church gives approximately 1,000 children a new winter coat at an annual cost of $50,000. The process begins in August when elementary and middle school counselors in all seven school districts are asked to identify their students who may need a new coat. Those counselors work diligently to ensure that children in need are served.
 

Every identified child has a coat ordered specifically for him/her. The project is funded through donations by First Presbyterian Church members and others throughout the community. For a gift of $35, donors can honor a loved one, provide a gift in memory of someone, or simply have the pleasure of giving a child a new coat for the cold winter (donation link below).
 

On Winter Warmth Distribution Day, parents and children begin lining up by 7:00 am, eager to “shop” for a new coat. Hundreds of First Presbyterian members, as well as other volunteers from throughout the community, walk each child through the aisles of coats, allowing each of them to be fitted and to select just the right style and color. It is a happy day, and almost every child proudly leaves the building dressed in style for cold weather.
 

The scriptures have guided this work for the past 30 years: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” James 2:14-17.
 

Winter Warmth is a reflection of Christ’s love in the world.