Help our new Interact Club collect coats for the needy! Bring coats to Rotary or City Academy before Nov. 23

Rotary Club of Millcreek’s newly forming Interact Club at City Academy (a charter high school in Salt Lake City) would love your help in collecting coats for the Community Coat Exchange they have been helping promote that takes place the day after Thanksgiving.

City Academy has been a community partner/drop of center with the Community Coat Exchange since 2006. The Community Coat Exchange is an annual event since 2005, founded and organized by Blue Sky Institute, a local grassroots non-profit organization. Patterned after a similar event in Rhode Island, the Coat Exchange is a collection and distribution of winter coats and other clothing items. The Coat Exchange is organized for the purpose of promoting reducing, reusing as well as giving to those in need. The event is held between 10 AM and 2PM the day after Thanksgiving at Library Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City.

Coats can be dropped off at City Academy, 555 East 200 South, anytime through November 23rd or at Library Plaza the day of the event.  City Academy Interact Club would also be happy to coordinate a donation pick up at a designated RC meeting before Thanksgiving.

The idea is for people to bring donations to a Rotary Club meeting or to any of the drop off centers before Thanksgiving, or to the event itself.  At the event, no questions are asked: If you need a coat, come get one. If you want to exchange a coat, bring the coat you want to donate and take one in exchange. If you have a donation of coats, we know people who can use them. All sizes are needed and accepted from infants to adults.

Leftover coats are donated to the Crossroads Urban Center Thrift Store, a project of the Crossroads Urban Center which advocates for low income and homeless people. The Crossroads Urban Center Thrift Store gives clothes away to poor people and also sells clothes and other goods in its retail shop to the general public to help fund the Crossroads Urban Center programs.

The Service Committee/Interact Club at City Academy, a student led committee, organizes the collection of coats within the school community. Last year the students of this committee collected over 300 coats and winter clothing items - the largest collection of any of the community partners. Students also volunteered their time the day of the event, helping to transport the coats to the event, and working at the event itself.