Coat Drive Boosted by Heartwarming Donation

(KNSI) — You’ve heard the phrase everything happens for a reason, and whatever the reason for this, those needing a warm coat will benefit big time.

The Knights of Columbus Council 5548 has had a program called Coats for Kids for the last several years. That has now transitioned more to coats for families as Knight Mac Cariveau tells KNSI News the council is serving as many families as they are children. He says they were distributing maybe 300 a year a few years back. In the last two years, the need has grown, and they’ve distributed over 1,000 of them, so imagine Cariveau’s delight and surprise when he got a call from Blue Stem.

Cariveau says Bluestem Brands, formerly Fingerhut, informed him there was an issue with a vendor and “they wanted to make a donation of 800 adult coats. All brand new. Still in the wrapper. The vendor didn’t want them to return the stock, and they ‘said feel free to donate that to a local community organization.’ They were kind enough to work with us and so we’ve got nice Blue Stem inventory to share with the adults in the community.”

The council also distributes other warm clothing like hats, mittens, scarves and snow pants.

You’ve probably also heard the phrase one good deed deserves another, and so when the building the Knights used for the warm clothing open houses was sold and the group needed to be out of the space by the end of the month, a local church stepped in to help.

Cariveau sang the praises of the people at Atonement Lutheran Church on the north side of St. Cloud. “You talk about a wonderful community. The folks there offered us a place not only to store the coats, but allowed us to use their community room to distribute at the end of October. It was a wonderful gesture on their part. They’re very generous.”

The next warm clothing open house is on Saturday, October 21st. There is another on Saturday, October 28th. Both are from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Atonement Lutheran Church, 1144 29th Avenue North, St. Cloud. Cariveau says people will be inside to help get others fitted for a coat.

Parking is on the south side of the building.

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