To help pay the mortgage on its new location, Santa Barbara’s Unity Shoppe will host a benefit next month that includes a barrel of wine for one lucky raffle winner.

Oreana Winery has contributed a full French oak barrel of Santa Barbara County syrah for the Wine Barrel Raffle. The wine will be bottled and custom-labeled for the winner of the fundraiser, which is scheduled for Feb. 10 at La Casa Nichita in Mission Canyon.


Unity Shoppe is in the process of moving its storage and processing operation to 110 W. Sola St. from its longtime location in the basement of the Old Victoria Community Hall, a block away at 33 W. Victoria St. The nonprofit organization had shared space with Ensemble Theatre Company, but renovations at the building have significantly reduced the available space.

“We lost 1,000 square feet to the theater,” said Barbara Tellefson, Unity Shoppe’s president and operations director.

Thus the move up the street, where the old Magellan’s Travel Supply building offers 16,000 square feet of room for Unity Shoppe’s food department, processing station and a resource center for volunteer training, as well as space for on-site fundraising events.

“We have a solution, we have a place to go,” said Tom Reed, Unity Shoppe’s executive director.

Unity Shoppe provides essential support to individuals, seniors and families with incomes below the federal poverty level. In 2012, agencies and nonprofit programs in Santa Barbara County referred nearly 10,000 families to the organization, which also has a gift shop at 1219 State St. and a rear store that provides food, clothes, school supplies, toys, household items and essentials for new mothers.

To help finance the new Sola Street space, Annette and Harold Simmons provided a $1 million down payment. Now, Unity Shoppe hopes to raise an additional $2.5 million to take care of the mortgage.

Tickets for the Wine Barrel Raffle are $10 and can be purchased in packs of three for $20 or seven for $50. For every $50 purchase of raffle tickets, two people can attend the raffle drawing from 2 to 5 p.m. Feb. 10 at La Casa Nichita.

Raffle tickets also can be purchased at Unity Shoppe’s 1219 State St. shop and at Oreana Winery & Tasting Room, 205 Anacapa St.

Click here to purchase raffle tickets or for more information, or call 805.956.4122.

— Noozhawk intern Cassidy Flynn can be reached at cflynn@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.