Making winter a little warmer
50,000 coats to be distributed through auto dealers’ initiative
Some 50,000 children across the five-county Philadelphia region will be a little warmer this winter, because they’ll be wearing brand new winter coats.
The Auto Dealers CARing for Kids Foundation is distributing a record number of new winter coats to area children in need as part of the organization’s ongoing Driving Away the Cold program.
The initiative began in 2008, and since then, a total of 315,000 new winter coats have been distributed.
Driving Away the Cold came about after members of the Automobile Dealers Association of Greater Philadelphia began talking about how they could do something that would have an across: Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware and Philadelphia counties, according to Mary Lynn Alvarino, CFO and director of operations for the Automobile Dealers Association of Greater Philadelphia and Auto Dealers CARing for Kids Foundation.
“We figured out that poverty was an issue that was more widespread than we thought. There are at least 175,000 children in the five-county Philadelphia area living below the poverty line,” she said. “We found a lot of them are without a winter coat and double up with hoodies and jackets during the winter.”
Alvarino added that providing the coats eases the financial burden on families.
“And it’s a new coat, and most of them have never had a new coat,” she added.
When the programbegan, 116 of the association’s 190 members participated. Since then the number has grown to more than 90-percent participation. This year, 180-members participated.
“We started in 2008 and that was timely because of the recession. The needs became greater in 2009 and 2010 — and they haven’t changed much since,” Alvarino said.
This year, 180 car dealers participated in the program, which purchases a new coat for every new car sold during the month of September. Distribution of the coats has already begun, and will continue over the next several weeks at locations across the region.
Last week, 1,500 new coats were delivered to the Phoenixville YMCA where representatives from the Pottstown, Spring Valley, Audubon, Upper Perk and Boyertown YMCAs picked up their supply. Events were also held in Souderton and Conshohocken. Distributions are planned in Harleysville, Lansdale, Coatesville, West Chester, Media and Philadelphia.
In an interview Friday, Alvarino put the 50,000 number into a more visual perspective. She said she was recently watching a Yankees game and heard the stadiumholds 50,000 people, adding that looking at the size of the stadium gave her a picture of howmany kids are getting coats this year.
Alvarino said the organization works with a network of 108 agencies to identify and distribute the coats to recipients. The largest partner in the network is the Philadelphia FreedomValley YMCA, which has 29 branches throughout the region.
“The YMCA, from the beginning, has been an organization that is responsible to the communities we serve and to those who are under served,” said Bertram Lawson, vice president of operations and camp services & diversity/inclusion/engagement at the Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA. “We thought there were children that were underserved in terms of getting a warm coat. We believe everyone should have the access, especially young children.”
Lawson added that each YMCA branch has the option of distributing directly to the community or working with its community partners— like churches or schools — to identify and distribute to those in need.
“Everyone gets excited by this effort,” Lawson said. He added that when he was first approached with the idea of working with the Automobile Dealers Association; he thought it was an “awesome initiative” to be involved with. The first year the YMCA participatedwas 2010.