The Hamilton County Kids Coats drive will be starting on Sept. 19 at the Trike Race and will continue through Oct. 26. CHS students can get involved by donating their old coats, hats, gloves and boots.

According to Melody Gao, Key Club president and senior, there will be opportunities to donate coats during soccer and football games. “For those in Key Club, they can get involved by volunteering to help collect coats during soccer and football games, but everyone can participate by bringing in coats for a good cause,” Gao said.

Gao said that she encourages students to help out, especially since winter in Indiana can be quite cold. “Oftentimes, we have coats lying around in our closets that we may never wear or may be too small,” Gao said. “Instead of throwing those coats out, it would be better if we could donate them to help others who might not have such necessities.”

Karen Taff, a social studies teacher helping out with this event, expresses similar thoughts. “(Getting new coats) is a significant burden financially for many families,” she said. “The goal is for every needy Hamilton County child to have a warm coat and for every CHS student and family to have a cleaned out coat closet.”

Taff said that in addition to soccer and football games, students can also donate their coats to E238 as well as to other boxes in locations around the school, which are yet to be determined. The Ben Davis football game on Oct. 12 is the last home football game for coat collections. “Right now, we’re working with Mr. Inskeep and also with the performing arts directors to see if we can have donation days at key sporting events in October,” Taff said.

Lisa Smith, a member of the Hamilton County Coats Committee, said that she also hopes to see more CHS students volunteering for this event, since in previous years, only a limited number of students have participated. “We have contacted Key Club, IPR teachers, the football team, the communications department and the world language department to get kids to collect coats, help sort coats, set up for the giveaway and help at the giveaway,” Smith said via email. “We are really working to get more high school students involved.” She would like more assistance particularly from Spanish students at CHS, for many of the families that will be receiving the coats speak Spanish.

Smith said that the goal for this year is to collect more than 3,000 coats, compared to the 2,900 coats collected last year. To help reach this goal, students can not only donate through CHS, but they can also bring coats directly to the Carmel United Methodist Church and Tuchman Cleaners.

Although the coats drive at the school only lasts until Oct. 26, the actual giveaway is on Nov. 3 at the Carmel United Methodist Church from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Taff said she suggests students to go to kidscoats.org and sign up for service hours, which can be counted toward extracurricular activities such as Key Club or National Honor Society.

“Hamilton County Kids Coats is a fabulous service project that has been embraced by a number of churches and community organizations here in Hamilton County,” Taff said. “The need (for coats) is always great, and it also provides an opportunity for all of us to clean out our closets and know that clothes that we’re donating are really going to a worthy cause.”