The Knights of Columbus are preparing to distribute nearly 3,000 winter coats to children in need across Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent. The annual Coats for Kids program will hold a local kickoff Thursday afternoon at The SCOT in Tilbury. About 35 local Knights of Columbus councils will pick up their orders before delivering the coats to school principals and teachers, who will distribute them to children in need. The program has grown significantly over the years, with Ontario Knights already surpassing last year’s record of more than 20,000 coats. The goal this year is to distribute 22,000 coats across the province. The coats are made specifically for the Knights of Columbus, with local councils working directly with schools to determine how many are needed and what sizes to order. Dave Gelinas, State Deputy of the Knights of Columbus Ontario, says the program helps take some financial pressure off families locally. “We do this to obviously help parents who are in a dilemma of deciding on where to spend their money wisely with the difficulty with the food banks and a couple million people in Canada going to them. We try to take one of those worries away from the parents that need to put a warm winter coat on their child.” He says the distribution is handled privately by school staff to protect the dignity of families receiving help. “We are in touch with principals and teachers themselves... ask them, what do you need? We have a variety of sizes to pick from. We give them a chart, and then the councils distribute the coats back to the schools, and we leave them to distribute them in private for privacy as well as to give them dignity.” Gelinas says they see the need rise year after year. “Started in 2016, we started small. We had a goal of 1,000 coats, and we passed that, and then we went up to 3,000, 7,000 coats the next couple of years. It took us five years to get over our big goal of 10,000 coats, but since then we’ve just been exploding.” The Knights of Columbus councils in Ontario raise funds throughout the year to purchase the coats, Thursday’s distribution takes place at 3 p.m. at The SCOT on Dupuis Avenue in Tilbury. These 20,000 or more coats is equal to the value of over $660,000.
