Submitted photo
Walkers take to the walking path at Kishacoquillas Park in Lewistown.

LEWISTOWN — Winter has a way of making everything feel sharper: the wind off a street corner, the sting in your cheeks, the way your hands instinctively search for pockets. This Saturday, that cold won’t just be something to endure on the way to somewhere warm — it will be part of the point.

The United Way of Mifflin-Juniata’s Walk for Warmth, held each February in two locations on the same day, is intentionally timed to meet winter on its own terms. It may sound “crazy,” even to people who care about the cause, but organizers say the season is the message as much as the setting.

When the air is cold enough to make simple tasks harder, the walk becomes a living reminder of why support for the Energy Bank matters.

“This is incredibly important, in that, other than a few sporadic gifts from churches, the only fundraising we do for the energy bank is our Walk for Warmth,” said Colette Hartzler, executive director of United Way of Mifflin-Juniata.

Why February? Because it feels like real life

The walk is held in February by design — a choice Hartzler said is meant to connect participants, however briefly, with a reality others face not as a challenge but as a constant.

“We do it in February, which may seem crazy to people, but it gives participants an idea of what it’s like to be cold and still function with your day-to-day life,” Hartzler said. “So, though it may seem crazy to hold a walk in the dead of Winter, it serves as an important reminder of why we are doing this.”

In other words, the timing isn’t a gimmick. It’s a way to put the cause in the body, not just the mind — to transform an abstract need into something you can feel in your lungs and fingertips.

And this weekend, the experience is likely to be especially vivid.

“This Saturday looks like it will be especially cold so everyone who participates should definitely bundle up!” Hartzler said.

Warm hands, warm spirits: the comfort waiting at the finish If cold is part of the lesson, comfort is part of the welcome.

Hartzler said the event will include hot drinks and snacks donated by community partners — small gestures that carry a larger meaning when the temperature drops and people are gathering for a shared purpose.

“We are excited to have hot chocolate donated by Dunkin’,” she said, adding that participants will also have donuts donated by Dunkin’. In Juniata County, Hartzler said walkers will also enjoy coffee from Pine Ridge Coffee.

There will be cookies as well, donated privately, Hartzler said — another contribution that helps turn a winter walk into something that feels, at the end, like a community table.

“So, we’ll have some hot drinks and goodies,” she said.

It’s the kind of detail that can be easy to overlook: a cup of hot chocolate, coffee warming hands through a lid, the quick sweetness of a donut or cookie. But those comforts are also an echo of the larger goal — to keep warmth within reach when it might otherwise slip away.

The walk behind the walk: making Energy Bank possible

The heart of the event is its purpose: supporting the Energy Bank.

Hartzler emphasized that the Walk for Warmth is not simply one fundraiser among many. It is, in practical terms, the key fundraiser that keeps the effort moving forward.

“This is incredibly important,” she said, because aside from occasional gifts from churches, the walk is the organization’s only fundraising dedicated to the Energy Bank.

That reality shapes how the event is viewed — not as a seasonal tradition for tradition’s sake, but as a necessary effort that helps United Way of Mifflin-Juniata continue assisting those who need help with heat.

The timing, the cold, the shared experience — all of it points back to that central idea: that people shouldn’t have to choose between enduring the cold and keeping their lives going.

Sponsors who step up: ‘We need each other’

Along with community donations for refreshments, Hartzler highlighted the role of sponsorship in making the Walk for Warmth possible.

“We also want to thank Pennian Bank and Heller Energy for their sponsorship of the Walk,” she said.

In a community event like this, sponsors are part of the structure — the behind-the-scenes support that helps an idea become an organized effort. But Hartzler framed that support in a broader way, as one piece of a larger pattern of neighbors helping neighbors.

“We need each other and this is another great example of the community coming together to assist those who need a little extra help,” she said.

A winter reminder, carried forward the Walk for Warmth doesn’t promise to change winter — February will still be February, and cold weather will still do what it always does. What it can change is the way people respond to it: with shared purpose, with practical support, and with a moment of awareness that lingers long after the walk is done.

This Saturday’s forecast may push participants to zip coats higher and pull hats lower. It might make the hot chocolate feel hotter and the coffee more welcome. And it might underline exactly what Hartzler says the event is meant to show — that cold isn’t just uncomfortable, it can be a barrier, and overcoming it takes more than toughness. It takes help.

So, the walk’s power isn’t only in the steps taken. It’s in what those steps represent: a community choosing, even in the dead of winter, to show up for people who need warmth the most.

Registration for both locations starts at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, at River Church, 105 CJEMS Lane in Mifflintown, and at Kishacoquillas Park in Lewistown. Opening ceremonies also start at 10 a.m. at both locations.

The walk helps fund the Mifflin-Juniata Energy Bank, which helps those age 65 and older, or veterans, who fall between the cracks and don’t qualify for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program but can’t afford both rent and heat.