Trav's Coats For Kids Reaches Milestone Donation

Loren Cosby, News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma - With the plunging temperatures, there's a good chance you got out your heavy winter coat. It's something many of us take for granted, but it's a critical need for those less fortunate.

That's why News On 6 is once again proud to be a part of Trav's Coats For Kids, and it's already been a record setting week for the program.

"It's a special delivery. This is our 300,000th coat that has been cleaned and donated over the 27 years,” said Yale Cleaners Vice President, John Rothrock.

The milestone truckload arrived this week at Tulsa's Catholic Charities at Harvard and Apache.

Hundreds of thousands of coats have been given by you over the years during our Coats for Kids campaign in partnership with Yale Cleaners.

The coats are cleaned, mended, made to look new and then turned over to Catholic Charities.

"Our first priority are the children,” said Becky Wisdom with Catholic Charities. “So we take, we go through all the coats that come in and we pull all the kids coats so that we can get those out first so people can start getting coats for their children."

Rothrock said every business needs to give back to the community and this has been a natural fit for them all these years.

"It really is special to see the kids pick out a coat that they really like,” he said. “Maybe they found a batman coat, or an OU coat and the smile gets on their face as they're walking away."

With the early cold, Catholic Charities has given away more than 2,000 coats already.

"You can see behind me the empty racks, so we are in need of coats,” Wisdom said.

The need is urgent and the appreciation from those getting a hand is great.

"They're like, ‘I don't know what we'd do without you. Where I would be without the generosity of the community helping me or helping my family or helping us out,'” Wisdom said.

"Tulsa's generosity just absolutely amazes me. In 27 years, we've done 300,000 coats, that didn't happen by us, that happened because of Tulsa and them taking up this real need and helping solve that problem,” Rothrock said.

If you'd like to help solve the problem, just drop off your unwanted coats - sizes infant through adult- at any of the 12 Yale Cleaners locations in Tulsa, Broken Arrow, Owasso and Sapulpa.

You can get more details on our website.