CincyWarm is an active project working to legally become a non-profit organization. I started the organization in 2025 with the mission to help the people in need around Cincinnati receive warm clothing and basic necessities for the winter.
As someone who is not directly from Cincinnati, I was shocked when I moved to the dorms my freshman year. I started exploring the city and realized how many people were living in the streets, struggling for everything they have, including their clothing. I wanted to find a way I could personally help them and make their lives easier in some way, but also include anyone else who needs help.
Although I had the idea in 2023 when I was a freshman, this project wasn’t able to come to life until 2025. This is when I had the great people in my life that I needed to finally to make this project happen. A professor gave us an assignment to do six hours of community service, and I asked if it was possible to make our own event rather than work with other businesses to meet the required service hours. He said yes, and I looked into how many hours of service I needed to get and how to also include my service-learning graduation requirements. I combined the two projects together to create CincyWarm. I had countless meetings with my professor, classmates, and the career center about how to make this happen. I often heard that this wasn’t the best or the safest idea but continued with my vision.
I started reaching out to the Center for Mission and Belonging at the Mount as well as all of the companies my friends and family members work at in the city. I asked if they would like to hold a donation bin or a flyer to collect clothing donations for those in need.
I faced a lot of rejections, but in the end, I got to partner with Hamilton County, Price Hill Community Center, Mount St. Joseph University, XXX, and Red Bank Trucking. We got so many blankets, hats, coats, and kids’ clothes that we did not even get to tally it all. We passed out clothes for free to the people of Cincinnati for the first time in the fall of 2025.
We are now hosting a spring event partnering with Bearcat Storage, in which we are collecting winter clothing. These clothes will be given out in the fall of 2026.