A venue for sharing was needed. She and her family discussed the problem at the dinner table. The solution to the problem was simple but brilliant–why not ask all the families with extra coats to bring them to school and give them to the kids without coats? As a result, the “Keep Us Warm Drive” has become a regular event each December at the William O. Schaeffer School.

Margie recognized right away that her idea needed to happen in a non-threatening environment because of the feeling of shame on both sides. Subtle but powerful social barriers make it hard to share material goods face to face, one on one. But a group effort through the school avoids that problem—the people with excess and people with nothing needn’t meet each other directly. The coat drive permits sharing without the emotional baggage.

She also decided that the best tactic was to take direct action by avoiding any kind of bureaucracy and instead relying directly on other parent volunteers. The working model is still the same, eleven years later. You get a flyer. You bring your extra coats (etc.—boots, hats, gloves, blankets, & canned food are needed too) to the school on the appointed Friday and/or Monday. The volunteers sort through it all. People who need coats come later in the day on Monday to pick up. Extras are donated to other charities. Then it’s all done.

We asked Margie, a physical therapist, how she has the time to organize this event. After filling us in on her training program for running the New York Marathon, Margie added with a laugh, “I have absolutely no time!” but she estimates that by now it only takes her about 30 hours a year to make the coat drive happen, plus the block of time Friday through Monday of the drive itself.

The operation is extremely efficient. Fifty to sixty volunteers take part, many of them regulars who come back each year. The volunteers sort the mountain of donated stuff by size and category throughout the weekend, and set up tables and mirrors, coffee and cookies. Categories include coats, blankets, boots, hats, mittens, non-perishable food items for local food banks, as well as dog and cat food and old/stained blankets for animal rescue efforts.

Donors should not mistake this drive as a way of getting rid of unusable items! Unfortunately, some things that are donated are in very bad shape and have to be thrown out. Blankets that are not fit to give to people are now given to local animal rescue groups. Margie also reports that she has actually gotten some criticism from people who say that all the coats donated should stay in the community. She disagrees. “A cold child is a cold child!” says Margie.

When the drive began, they gave away about 450 coats. In 2005, they received between four and five thousand coats and even so there was a shortfall. (There are never enough warm blankets, coats for babies and toddlers, and coats in extra large sizes.) Currently, twenty-one organizations request coats for their caseloads from this drive, a result of contacts Margie has developed over the years.

The people who receive the donated clothes are typically recent immigrants from warm countries in the south, who have never needed winter clothing before. They sometimes have to sleep with nothing but a sheet to cover them as winter comes on. Many recipients are Hispanic day laborers who come to the school from Piermont, while volunteers deliver coats pre-ordered by size / gender to recipients in Spring Valley, Haverstraw and other communities in Rockland county.

Over the 12 years the drive has taken place, Margie has observed that the gap between haves and have-nots has widened in our area. In particular, because of anti-immigrant undercurrents, undocumented immigrants are feeling much less comfortable about coming forward to ask for aid. On the positive side, awareness of their neediness has also increased, and the response rate of coat donations has grown ten-fold in ten years. Many people have gotten into the habit of saving appropriate items throughout the year especially for this one event.

Margie’s youngest daughter is about to graduate from high school this year, and she is looking for someone, perhaps a person with school-aged children, to replace her at the helm of this magnificent operation. “It’s a simple model,” she says, “and it should be a model for every community.”