If holiday shopping earns you or the kids a new, warm winter coat or jacket, you can also contribute to buy a new warm winter coat to the poor and homeless in NYC, including kids.
2021 is the 33rd Annual New York Cares Winter Coat Drive, which has delivered more than two million warm winter coats to NYC needy over the years.
This year more than ever, New Yorkers are counting on acts of warmth make it through the holiday season and the rest of winter.
Not since the Great Depression have so many people – in NYC and elsewhere – experienced hunger, unemployment, illness, and homelessness.
Basic needs like food and warm clothing compete with one another as families and individuals face cruel choices.
Before Covid, you could donate a gently worn coat, such as one your own children outgrew, to various drop-off sites, including NYPD precincts and NYFD firehouses.
Now, New York Cares asks for cash donations. The goal is to raise $600,000. When you donate, your name is added to their website.
When you donate $25, you provide a New Yorker a warm coat, plus 10 meals, and so much more.
New York Cares believes:
- No one should have to skip a meal to buy a winter coat.
- No parent should be forced to choose between buying school supplies and staying warm.
- No essential worker should commute without a warm coat on their back.
The annual winter coat collection is as much a part of the holidays in NYC as the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree and the fancy department store holiday windows, and you can donate through the end of the year to meet demand.
Here’s what a donation center looked like a couple of years ago. It’s similar today, except the coats are new instead of used.
This article about the New York Cares Winter Coat Drive has been published annually since 2014, and has been updated for 2021
Evelyn Kanter is a native New Yorker who has written for the NY Times, NY Daily News, NY Post, New York Magazine, and is a former on-air reporter for WCBS Newsradio 88 and WABC-TV Eyewitness News.
I’m also the author of several NYC and Hudson Valley guidebooks, including my latest, 100 Things to Do in NYC Before You Die.
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