Youth Center drive nets coats for the needy

Showing off their collection

Children at the R. P. Lee Youth Center show off the coats they collected through the center’s month-long coat drive at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., Feb. 5. The center’s families and staff collected five boxes of coats and other cold weather gear for the Marian House, a local charity. (U.S. Air Force photo/Corey Dahl)

How do I get out of here?

A little girl digs her way out of the R. P. Lee Youth Center’s collection of donated cold weather gear at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., Feb. 5. During the center’s month-long coat drive families and staff collected five boxes of coats and other cold weather gear for the Marian House, a local charity. (U.S. Air Force photo/Corey Dahl)

Published Feb. 20, 2008
By Corey Dahl
21st Space Wing Public Affairs

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Thanks to the R.P. Lee Youth Center here, Colorado's chilly winter won't be quite as harsh for many of the area's needy.

The center's families and staff collected five large boxes of coats in January to donate to the Colorado Springs' Marian House, a local charity and soup kitchen. Kelley Wanderscheid, the center's director for youth programs, said the results were above and beyond what the staff expected from the drive, the center's first ever.

"We thought we'd get maybe one box," Ms. Wanderscheid said. "But they just kept coming and coming; we were so surprised."

The center started the drive at the end of December as one of its monthly family activities. Mary Lou Simpson, the center's training and curriculum specialist for youth programs, is a regular volunteer at the Marian House and had seen countless families come in from the cold, wearing clothes insufficient for harsh winter weather.

"We'd see families come in with really light jackets, with holes in their coats, with no coats," she said. "They need coats in this weather, just like everyone else."

The center's staff told the kids about the drive and hung up flyers at the front of the center, expecting a few families to donate old coats. But, soon, the two boxes they had set out were overflowing with children's coats, adult coats, ski pants, vests, gloves and all kinds of cold weather gear.

Ms. Simpson said the overwhelming number of donations can be attributed to the community's generosity.

"I think it's just the Air Force community," she said. "There's something about the military where people just help each other."

The center plans to take the coats to the Marian House sometime in the next two weeks. The donations, Ms. Simpson said, will do far more than warm bodies.

"These are going to warm hearts," she said. "A lot of hearts."