St. Joachim School’s coat drive helps locals stay warm

Submitted by Cornelia Fuertes

Costa Mesa, Nov. 20, 2009 -- St. Joachim Parish School teamed up with the One Warm Coat organization to hold a coat drive at the Costa Mesa private catholic school. With colder winter weather approaching, the need has never been greater and it’s never been easier to make a difference in our community.

St. Joachim Catholic School took up this opportunity for a school and parish community coat drive to make sure that nobody goes without such a basic necessity as a coat this winter. For the passed week the school had been collecting clean, gently used coats and jackets as part of the One Warm Coat community service project.

Friday Nov. 20th, was the final collection day and students as well as parents and teachers were filling the collection containers to an overspill. “It was just wonderful to to see our kids show so much enthusiasm when placing their contribution into the collection containers,” one St. Joachim parent mentioned and continued, “ It’s so important to teach kids early on to care for other people.”

The organization One Warm Coat is dedicated to distributing reusable coats, free of charge, directly to local children and adults. All donated coats will be given to local people in need.

“More people than ever need help these days. I am proud of the thousands of coat drive organizers whose creativity and generosity of spirit are making a real difference in their own communities.” commented Sherri Wood, President and National Coordinator for One Warm Coat.

One Warm Coat is national non-profit organization that supports and encourages coat drives. It helps individuals, groups, companies and organizations across the country collect coats and deliver them to local agencies that distribute the coats free to people in need. More than one million coats have been provided to those in need at no cost since its inception in 1992.

St. Joachim Parish school is located on 1964 Orange Avenue, Costa Mesa, CA 92627. For more information please call (949)574-7411 or log on to www.stjoachimparishschool.com