On Oct. 18, second grade Brownies from Don Callejon School’s Girl Scout Troop 61413 gathered at Northside Library and made posters to decorate a donation bin for One Warm Coat. Until Saturday, Nov. 5, coats can be dropped off at bins located at Northside Library (695 Moreland Way) and the Don Callejon School office (4176 Lick Mill Blvd.). On Nov. 5, from
10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Girl Scouts will be collecting coats outside the school. According to a press release from One Warm Coat, those who wish to donate money can text “WARM” to 80100 to donate $10 or visit www.onewarmcoat.org/donate and mention this coat drive’s number, which is 16-0305.
“The Girls Scouts of Northern California are partners of One Warm Coat and they do one big drive every Black Friday but we’re doing this drive earlier so the younger girls in the troops can get involved,” says Maureen Chu, leader of Troop 61413 and coat drive organizer. “This is the first year that the Don Callejon School troops are doing the coat drive together.”
Each participating Girl Scout troop from Don Callejon School is contributing to the goal to collect 100 coats and $100 during the coat drive. The kinder Daisies in Troop 61090 decorated another bin. The fourth grade Juniors in Troop 61462 are giving reminders about the coat drive through the school’s public announcement system. The fifth grade Juniors in Troop 60216 taped a social media commercial, accessible at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrkB_BFKE2U. The third grade Brownies in Troop 61092 will be volunteering at Don Callejon School on Nov. 5 to manage the bins.
“DCSCO (Don Callejon School Community Organization) is hosting a Goodwill donation drive also on the same day while the Girl Scouts are having a separate drive for the coats,” Chu explains. (On Nov. 5 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Don Callejon School’s parking lot, the DCSCO Goodwill drive fundraiser is accepting clothes, shoes, household items, books, electronics and e-waste, such as televisions, computers and copiers.)
According to Patti Zappa, One Warm Coat’s director of development and communications, One Warm Coat helped give away about 600,000 warm coats and supported about 3,500 coat drives during the winter of 2015 and 2016.
“One Warm Coat has been around since 1992 but we expanded to be a national organization in the early 2000s,” Zappa says. “The Girls Scouts was one of the first groups to take the program national. [Working with One Warm Coat] is really a great first entrance into philanthropy.”
One Warm Coat has a database of over 1,000 vetted non-profit organizations across the United States. One Warm Coat connected Don Callejon School’s Girl Scouts to Cityteam, the intended recipient of the donated coats. Cityteam is a Christian non-profit organization that assists the underprivileged and homeless.
“We have a Family Services side to Cityteam and that’s over at [1297 N. 13th St.] in San Jose; we have a lot of underprivileged families there who need food boxes and clothing and they’re looking for coats at this time of year,” says Sandee DeBella, procurement officer for Cityteam. “Some of the coats will also go to our homeless outreach teams for distribution.”
