Community Responds to Rescue Mission Call for Coats
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Just as bitterly cold temperatures return to the area, the Rescue Mission of Mahoning Valley, supported by businesses and individuals, today will again distribute coats, blankets and other donated items to the needy from its mobile donation truck.
“It’s perfect timing, actually,” Crystal Eckman, ambassador with the Rescue Mission, said of this week’s effort to distribute new and gently used coats and other winter clothing articles along with blankets and sheets. On Tuesday the agency provided items to 78 individuals at Restoration Ministries of Youngstown and today will distribute at Spanish Evangelical Church.
The mission put out a request a few weeks ago about needing the items “with all of these so-called [polar] vortexes and cold snaps,” Eckman said.
Coats and blankets were collected throughout the winter as well through various donation drives, added Lynn Wyant, director of development for the Rescue Mission.
Response to the call for donated items was also unprecedented, Eckman noted. “We got an overabundance,” she noted. “This is from the community giving us so much that we weren’t able to contain it.”
The mission, which also purchased items using monetary contributions made in response to its call for donations, decided to use the mobile unit to distribute what had been collected to different parts of the community.
“It was the community,” said Barbara Sloan, inventory clerk for the Rescue Mission. “The churches help us tremendously,” she said.
Also contributing to the effort were various businesses and organizations in the Mahoning Valley. Among them were Ballet Western Reserve in Youngstown.
Instead of giving gifts during January office parties, employees at Morgan Stanley’s Canfield office collected hats, gloves, socks, blankets and other items it donated to the Rescue Mission. “We’re blessed, we’re very lucky here so instead of buying something for somebody who has everything, we thought we would do a donation to somebody in need,” said Lori Kramer, senior registered associate.
Liberty Tax Service marked the opening of its seasonal tax offices on Market Street in the Uptown, on Mahoning Avenue on the West Side and on Boardman-Poland Road in Boardman with collection drives. Encouraged by the local Liberty Tax Services franchisee, Byron Huffman, the offices collected items over a two-week period, reported Jessica Popio, manager of the Mahoning Avenue office and marketing coordinator.
“We are a seasonal so we like to give back to the community,” Popio said. The offices also got other local businesses involved with the drives as well, she said. She reported she filled her PT Cruiser twice for trips to deliver the donated items to the Rescue Mission.
Many of the coats being distributed came from Burlington Coat Factory’s Boardman and Niles Locations, the Rescue Mission’s Wyant reported. “They have a program each year called One Warm Coat, that when you donate a used coat you get a discount on a new coat.” The Rescue Mission receives the new coats and distributes them.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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