How to Keep the Needy Warm Project

Winter time is a brutal time of the year weather-wise. It can be even worse if you don't have an appropriate coat. This is a project which can be called "Button Up the Needy". Your committee works within the community to round up slightly used coats of all sizes and for all ages. The drop off place is a dry cleaner who gives a $1 off coupon for future dry cleaning when the coats are dropped off. This is a year-round project which always pays off in the winter.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• telephone book
• a committee
• news media contact
• a place to store the coats

How to Keep the Needy Warm Project.

1. Contact your local dry cleaning service(s) to see if they would be willing to be your drop off point for coats obtained from the project. They can do something like give a $1 off coupon on future dry cleaning as a thank you for the donation.
2. Place articles in your local news paper with photos of the committee members holding coats at the dry cleaner(s) in order to get the word out about your project.
3. Contact a television station in your area to see if they would be willing to partner in with your project as one of their fundraising projects.
4. The newspaper and television prompts would be free advertising incentive to the dry cleaner(s) to work along with you.
5. Have one or two committee members listed in all articles as to the persons to contact when the need is there for coats. (The persons who need the coats should be kept private and should not be discussed openly.)
6. Put flyers in all the schools within your district for teachers to keep watch for children and teenagers who appear to need the coats and refer them to your committee members in charge of referral.
7. Flyers should also be placed with police and fire departments, preschools, adult and senior centers and in all the grocery stores, so committee members in charge can be contacted not only by working personnel but also by those in need personally.
8. The coats should be cleaned and stored in a central location where they can be accessed at any time when a need for the coats is determined.

Tips & Warnings

• Many times dry cleaners in particular have coats that are not picked up within a timely manner and they donate the items to charity. So why not have them donate the coats to this project? It keeps the charity local and within the community.
• You can also take donations of scarves, gloves and hats as well.
• Money donations can be accepted in order to purchase those coats which may not be donated in particular sizes that may be needed.