Long Island Coats For Kids drive wraps up
successful year
The long, cold winter in the Long
Island area just got a little bit warmer, thanks to the efforts
of Arthur Epstein and the Coats For Kids drive he coordinated.
Epstein, who has been in drycleaning for
42 years and is the owner of Randi Cleaners in Mineola, NY, has
collected the last garment of the annual Coats for Kids drive
that began back on Sept. 26. He has coordinated the drives for
the National Cleaners Association for the past few years.
The program’s kickoff event was
held at the Mineola Village Hall where about 230 people
attended the event, a turnout that took months of letter
writing and phone calls to generate. Epstein likened the
experience to “inviting people to a wedding with no
food.”
“I started doing this around
May,” he recalled. “You have to send out all of the
letters. Two-hundred and thirty people don’t come to your
kickoff just because you sent them one thing. You’ve got
to call and talk to them.”
Since then, the drive has been in full
gear, collecting and cleaning an estimated 35,000 coats
altogether this year — about 25,000 of which will be
donated to families in the Long Island area.
Over the years, Epstein and his partners
have collected, cleaned and distributed over half a million
coats in all.
“No one in need has ever been
turned away,” Epstein noted. “Residents have come
together to support us with coats that no longer fit them and
some have even bought brand new coats to donate. It has grown
because people realized that this kind of activity that
we’re doing is needed in our communities.”
The program has helped people of all ages
from all types of demographics and backgrounds. All of them
have one thing in a common, however: a need to be warmer in the
harsh winter.
“We’ve helped a lot of
individuals who were sent from the churches,” Epstein
said. “People getting out of jail and stuff don’t
have coat. We even gave them some coats. It’s
amazing.”
Of course, the success hasn’t taken
place overnight. Though Epstein has been involved with Coats
For Kids for 20 years, he didn’t begin coordinating the
effort until April of 1999 when he decided to helm the project
during an NCA board meeting.
That was the year he greatly increased
the scope of the collection efforts. In two months, he wrote
over 400 letters to legislators trying to generate publicity
for the event. The plan worked.
In six years’ time, the Coats For
Kids program has expanded to include hundreds of drycleaners
and has enlisted the aid of about 60 percent of the Long Island
school districts. Collection boxes can also be found at many of
the local police stations, town and county halls, court
buildings, Girl Scout organizations and even in the offices of
New York state’s legislators.
When it comes to cleaning the garments,
Epstein does about 1/3 of the work at his small plant in
Mineola. Last year, he and some of his employees volunteered to
clean 10,000 of the garments, working many weeknights and on
virtually every Sunday during the drive.
“I made a commitment and
that’s it,” Epstein explained. In January,
I’m off.”
As long as their is a void in the
community that needs to be filled, Epstein plans on honoring
his promise. From the start, all he has wanted to do was help
people and generate positive publicity.
“I hope I’ve set an example
for other people... the neighborhood and other cleaners to be
charitable,” he said.
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