Coats for the winter
A table of winter coats sits as Alex Town, one of the organizers of the annual Coats For Kids drive organized by the Rotary Club of Moses Lake, stands and watches. The event was held on Saturday in the cafeteria of Columbia Middle School.
CHARLES H. FEATHERSTONE/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
James Yonko, assistant principal at Vanguard Academy, and Jeremy Nolan, a member of the Rotary Club of Moses Lake, sort through winter coats on Saturday.
MOSES LAKE — If there was a perfect day to give away winter clothes to children in need, Saturday — with its freezing rain atop two weeks of snow — was it.
It was quite a change from Nov. 5, when the event was originally scheduled. Then, the temperature averaged in the 40s, and no snow was on the ground.
“You know, when we first started, in comparison with last year, the weather was really warm,” said Alex Town, one of the organizers of this year’s Coats For Kids drive overseen by the Rotary Club of Moses Lake. “So we felt that a lot of families probably weren’t digging into their closets and looking at what coats they had.”
But the proper arrival of winter about two weeks ago, Town said when volunteers arrived at the Columbia Middle School cafeteria to start handing out winter coats, boots, gloves and other used items cleaned up and readied for the event, there was already a line of people waiting for the doors to open at 8 a.m. despite the icy sidewalks and the cold rain.
“So we went ahead and opened early,” Town said.
It’s a sentiment echoed by Jeremy Nolan as he helped sort girls' clothes. As a member of the Rotary Club of Moses Lake, Nolan said the annual coats for kids drive was one of the first activities he participated in when he joined the club. Every autumn, club members solicit donations of used winter clothing, clean it, and then give it away to those in need.
“It’s one of the reasons Rotary exists,” Nolan explained.
Demand is especially strong for boots, hats and gloves, Town said.
“So we’ve kind of expanded this year,” he said. “It’s turned out better than we thought.”
Town said Rotary received about 600 coats this year in the drive, though in some years they have received as many as 800, and that whatever isn’t taken on Saturday will be given to the Moses Lake School District, which will hand it out to students in need whose families weren’t able to come on Saturday.
“We’ve been consistently asked by the school if we have extra coats,” he said. “And some of the other agencies that are supporting the homeless will also reach out to us and ask if we have additional coats.”
“The need in this community is immense,” Town added.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.
