Community drives Coats for Kids and Folks

Coats that have been donated for Belleville’s Coats for Kids and Folks program await new owners at the Salvation Army headquarters. Photo by LaShaina Blair-White

By Mo Cranker

BELLEVILLE – Coats for Kids and Folks Belleville is running every Friday of this month.

The program has been active for over 15 years and is run by the Salvation Army in association with Parsons Cleaners.

The Salvation Army collects new and used jackets for adults and children in need. Along with the coats, the Salvation Army distributes hand-knitted scarves, tuques and mittens that have been donated to them by the community.

Every Friday there is free distribution of the coats from 1 to 3 p.m. The distribution takes place at the Salvation Army headquarters at 295 Pinnacle St.

Roughly 250 coats were given out  last year alongside over 400 scarves, tuques and pairs of mittens, said Marlene Johnston a community and family associate at the Salvation Army.

Johnston spearheads the operation with the help of a few volunteers and has been running the show for over four years.

It would be impossible without the help of the community, she said.

“Everything comes from the community. Without the community’s help we would not do this,” said Johnston.

“There’s a lot of people that cannot afford to go out and buy a brand new coat at this time of year. Coats are getting very expensive, good-quality coats are getting very expensive, and our winters are cold. So people in the community need to have access to a good warm coat.”

At the end of last year’s Coats for Kids and Folks, a substantial donation was made to the Salvation Army by a member of Belleville’s community to buy brand new coats.

“We went out and got coats that were on sale at Mark’s, Sears and Giant Tiger and stored them away for this winter,” said Johnston.

Johnston said she expects the amount of donations and purchased coats to continue to rise.

Parsons Cleaners has been helping with the program for over 15 years, said owner Eric Hamilton.

“We’ve done it for many, many years just for community service – to help the needy out, the kids and adults that can’t afford winter coats,” said Hamilton.

Parsons is expecting around 200 coats to be run through the store for cleaning this year, a big increase on the 150 coats the company cleaned last year, he said. The increase is coming after another cleaner that helped out last year is no longer doing so.

When asked if he would continue helping with the program in the future, Hamilton said, “Yeah, we’ll keep doing it.”