Allan Appel photo
Krissel and Ryan Mendez with Jamie Zhuzhingo at Friday's coat drive.
Eight-year-old Ryan Mendez is now no longer afraid of the wind and the rain — thanks to a crisp new blue-and-white jacket he scored at a Fair Haven coat drive led by a locally based, internationally operating Catholic fraternal order.
Mendez shed those cold-weather fears and put on that winter-weather coat on the day after in the community room of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church (formerly St. Francis) at 397 Ferry St. to the Knights of Columbus’ “Coats for Kids” program.
Now in its 12th year, the Knights program raises money through year-long fundraising activities of their groups of volunteers, called councils, based in churches all across America and Canada.
Each year volunteers from the national Catholic fraternal organization buy very early and in bulk, and usually from China, which permits a major discount so that this year Ryan’s spiffy new wind-and-water-resistant jacket is one of 180,000 being distributed nationally, including about 6,000 in Connecticut.
A good winter jacket or coat, such as were free for the taking to anyone who entered the Ferry Street church on Friday, normally costs close to $100. But with the discounted price based on the bulk and early order, said K of C’s Jason Porello, the chief national organizer of the coat drive, it is often closer to $20.
That means that the Knights purchased the 180,000 coats at 75 percent off, or $3.6 million, still a substantial sum, which had to be raised.
The local church council volunteers who helped accomplish this included, in addition to Our Lady of Guadalupe (the merged congregations of St. Francis and St. Rose of Lima), those at St. Bernadette, St. Michael, and St. Mary’s in New Haven; St. Rita’s in Hamden; and Holy Infant in Orange.
On the dubiously named Black Friday, when shopping mavens allegedly go out to score their best bargains in the run up to Christmas and thus help retailers transition from red to black, no better bargains could be found than the 240 free winter coats for small kids, youths, and teens (as the tables were colorfully organized) at the church.
St. Francis was one of eight sites statewide, from Hartford to Stamford, participating in the program this year. Even before the event opened at its scheduled 10 A.M. seven families, each with parents and two to four kids were lined up at the room’s entranceway off the parking lot, said K of C volunteer Krystal Green.
St. Francis’s council leader Jamie Zhuzhingo said in just the first hour 40 coats were distributed, many for young girls. Families have learned about the event over the last months, he reported, from their priests announcing the news at mass and also from the churches’ Facebook sites.
Six-year-old Lucas Mendez said he picked his black-and-white (and also weather-resistant) jacket from the wide variety available because it was “cool.”
His older cousins, eight-year-old Ryan and nine-year-old Krissel, are both students at the Amistad Academy. Krissel said of her all-blue choice, “This is the only one that fitted me, but I really like blue.”
The additional plus is that it will match, to an extent Krissel considered still fashionable, the blue shirt and navy pants that are the uniform of her school.
The next step, said Porello, is to begin, next week, on Dec. 1, fundraising for the next year’s edition of “Coats for Kids.”