Volunteer Spotlight: Anne Baxter, Winter Night Watch
On several frigid nights each winter, Anne Baxter loads hot meals into the back of a Salvation Army canteen and hits the streets with a team of volunteers to feed some of the city’s most vulnerable people.
Anne first started volunteering for The Salvation Army’s Winter Night Watch program 12 years ago with her mother, the late Susan Conine -- a longtime member of the Women’s Auxiliary Board. She was immediately hooked. “As a volunteer you see exactly who we are serving and how great their needs are,” said Anne, who is also a member of The Salvation Army’s Omaha Advisory Board. “They line up out in the cold, often past where the light of the van is and into the darkness. You see the need lined up right up in front of you.”
From the beginning of December until the end of February, Winter Night Watch volunteers distribute hot meals as well as coats, hats, gloves, socks and blankets five nights a week to men, women and children in need – many of whom are homeless. The program, now in its 32nd year, provides approximately 16,000 meals and 12,000 winter outerwear items each season.
“Winter Night Watch encapsulates everything The Salvation Army does. It goes to where people are, it gives them what they need, and it serves everyone,” said Anne. “A lot of the day-to-day work that The Salvation Army does in this community goes unnoticed. What’s great about volunteering for Winter Night Watch is that you can really see the impact when you go out in the night and see the wide range of people being served.”
Learn more about our Winter Night Watch program. Interested in volutneering? Sign-up here.