{"id":124857,"date":"2026-02-27T06:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/124857\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T06:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:07:07","slug":"new-journey-urges-community-support-after-cold-related-deaths-this-winter-reading-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/124857\/","title":{"rendered":"New Journey urges community support after cold-related deaths this winter | Reading Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>READING, Pa. \u2013 New Journey Community Outreach expands operations when temperatures drop.<\/p>\n<p>During Code Blue, they open early. They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. They operate as a warming center.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYear round, we do lunch service, which is about 400 meals daily, but for Code Blue, we offer breakfast and dinner,\u201d said Christie Botterbusch, executive director of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/njcoinc.org\/event\/coldest-night-of-the-year-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New Journey Community Outreach<\/a>. \u201cWe basically operate as a warming center so that people are not outside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the Berks County coroner, several deaths this winter were related to being outside in the cold. Some cases are still under investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Botterbusch said when temperatures drop, the work becomes urgent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt does become a matter of life and death,\u201d she said. \u201cou really just have to act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why Saturday\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cnoy.com\/location\/reading\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u201cColdest Night of the Year\u201d walk<\/a> matters. It\u2019s New Journey\u2019s largest fundraiser of the year.\u2028<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt really is to shine a light on the issues of hurt, hunger and homelessness in our communities,\u201d Botterbusch said.<\/p>\n<p>The 5K walk happens at Penn State Berks. Registration starts at 4 p.m. The walk begins at 5 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Botterbusch said it\u2019s about more than money.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose are people,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can get so far removed from the human aspect of it. These are very real people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2013 New Journey Community Outreach expands operations when temperatures drop. During Code Blue, they open early.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[26153,58505,391,58504,128,130,129,32975],"class_list":["post-124857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-code-blue","tag-coldest-night-of-the-year","tag-homelessness","tag-new-journey-community-outreach","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-warming-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}