Ice House raises funds to help families stay warm
Over two days in January, the third annual Washington Area Fuel Fund Ice House, organized by Washington Gas, educated people who visited the District of Columbia’s Southwest Waterfront on how cold a house without heat can get.
Designed from 98 ice blocks and built into a 10-foot-by-20-foot structure by Baltimore-based Ice Lab, the WAFF Ice House raised more than $176,000—a 15% increase over last year—to help provide heat to an additional 300 families.
“It’s 10 to 15 degrees colder in the Ice House than the ambient air outside,” Kelly Caplan, community outreach and WAFF manager, Washington Gas, told American Gas. “People walk in and are stunned because they never thought about it before. They say they can’t imagine their kids being in such a cold house, and they turn around and make a donation.”
That’s exactly the reaction Caplan was going for when she spearheaded the Ice House idea after hearing about it at a meeting of the National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition.
“It warms my heart, literally and figuratively,” she said. “It’s a recognition of how many families across our country are in survival mode, deciding between putting dinner on the table, buying medicine and paying their heating bill.”
Local celebrities such as Brian Mitchell, formerly of the Washington Redskins and now official WAFF 2020 spokesperson, and executives of WGL companies and vendor sponsors took turns sitting in the Ice House for 30-minute intervals.
The American Gas Association is a proud sponsor of the event. AGA President and CEO Karen Harbert and Brian Caudill, AGA’s managing director of governmental affairs and public policy, also took their turns sitting in the Ice House.
Along with the Ice House, The District Wharf and WAFF hosted a Fire and Ice Festival, where attendees could tour the Ice House, participate in ice games, see fire dancing and sample whisky.
WAFF is a 37-year-old program led by Washington Gas and The Salvation Army that has served some 300,000 low- to moderate-income families in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia who cannot pay their energy bills and must face the challenges of living in a cold home.
Every dollar donated to WAFF goes directly to keeping families warm because Washington Gas pays all administrative costs to run the program.
Caplan said she “shamelessly” copied a similar ice house program run by the Dollar Energy Fund in Pittsburgh, which helped her through the startup process. For any other utility that might be interested in bringing an ice house to its community, Caplan said she promises the same help she received.