Coat Closet sets record; 1,200 turnout for free, warm clothing

NycCole Ellis, the 2 1/2-year-old daughter of Tysha and Brad Ellis, shops for a new winter coat at the McCook, Nebraska, "Coat Closet" Thursday. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)

McCOOK, Nebraska -- The coordinator of the "Coat Closet," the yearly effort in McCook, Nebraska, to make sure everyone has warm winter clothing, is saddened by the depth of the need for help.

But, on the other hand, Barb Ostrum is awestruck by the generosity of those who reach out to help.

With two days of collecting coats and three days of shopping behind Ostrum and her volunteers, Ostrum said this year's Coat Closet helped record numbers. "We helped our highest numbers ever," she said, estimating the number of shoppers at just more than 1,200. And, Ostrum pointed out, that figure doesn't include "repeats," those who came back to peruse the coat racks and shop once more.

"We've never reached 1,000 people before," Ostrum said.

Ostrum said she is impressed and humbled by the generosity of donors. "A coat closet project in Lincoln recently distributed 16-hundred coats," she said. "And our Coat Closet distributed at least 12-hundred coats. That really says something for our community."

Ostrum said she noticed parents of many socioeconomic classes taking advantage of the Coat Closet this year, which allows them to use the funds they would have used to purchase coats for their kids to pay for rising living costs. "It helps," Ostrum said. "That's what we're here for."

At the end of the week-long event, coats and clothing left behind are given to Good Will in Grand Island and to a mission in Denver. Hats and mittens are distributed to area schools, Barb said, and she keeps kids' coats at her office, Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska at 108 West C Street in downtown McCook (308-345-1187), in case of emergencies.

Ostrum called the McCook-area's 30th annual Coat Closet "a great success. But I couldn't have done it without our volunteers -- especially since we didn't have the help of the Work Camp (the Nebraska Department of Corrections Work Ethic Camp in McCook) this year."

The Coat Closet project is made possible by Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska and the Southwest Nebraska community