Warm and grateful for Yule
Coat drive for homeless is ‘a lifesaver’
Rose Wilford, wrapped in a plush white winter coat, pranced before a mirror like a model on a runway.
She had reason to be grateful this Christmas: The courageous 68-year-old woman was free of an abusive relationship, out of a women’s shelter and living in her own place in Brooklyn.
“I left everything behind,” said Wilford, who sashayed for camera crews Tuesday at the annual New York Cares coat drive for the homeless, held at GMHC’s headquarters on W. 38th St. in Midtown.
“GMHC has been a lifesaver,” she continued. “This is a positive place. I love my coat. It’s my Christmas gift.”
Wilford was among the hundreds of happy people receiving a new holiday coat from the volunteer Santas with New York Cares, a group including collegebound high school senior James Schwartz. The Baruch College Campus High School student opted to take a day off from PlayStation FIFA soccer and instead help keep struggling New Yorkers warm this winter.
“My parents instilled in us that we are privileged and that we have to give back, “said Schwartz. ”This is our ninth year volunteering. PlayStation is easier, but I feel much more rewarded doing this.”
Will Way, who spent cold and lonely nights as a homeless man sleeping in Chinatown’s Cortlandt Alley, said the coat drive delivers a message that New Yorkers care about their less fortunate brothers and sisters.
“I lost hope quite a few times,” confessed Way. ”I was hospitalized, and I had to detox from alcohol. I’m staying focused and sober.”
As he slipped into his new black wool coat, Way — a foreign languages student already fluent in Japanese — expressed his deep thanks in English for the safety net.
“All that hardship makes me try harder,” he said. “I’m grateful for the people at GMHC.”
New York Cares has amassed 50,000 coats to give away this season and aims to double that by the end of winter. The organization distributes the much-needed coats through hundreds of schools and nonprofits like GMHC, an HIV/AIDS prevention, care and advocacy group.
As a flood of men and women tried to pick and choose from the mounds of coats at the GMHC office, “Coat Ambassador” Patrick McGuire directed the steady flow of traffic to the small, medium and extra-large coat piles.
“Are you going to put a hoodie under it?” asked McGuire, 57, a retired St. John’s University administrator, as one man searched for a new coat. “Try a larger size.”
McGuire leads an army of 25 volunteers to help dispense about 110,000 coats annually to New York’s most vulnerable population during the winter.
“We take so much for granted as New Yorkers,” he said. “We see so many people with hardships and they simply just want someone to listen or give them confidence.”
McGuire, who has a Columbia University Ph.D. in religious philosophy, said success in the volunteer world comes with no assumptions and no expectations.
Then he summed up the annual holiday season homeless outreach in two simple words: “Be thankful!”