Coats | Grumpa Joe's Place

Five Hundred and Fifty and Done

Posted on 18/12/2021 by Grumpa Joe

This morning I conveniently dropped my wife off at the local shopping plaza to do Christmas shopping and then returned home. I grabbed a quick cup of coffee as I texted the Frankfort Lions Club Winter Coat Team to join me in the final coat sort. An hour later I was on the stage at the Founder’s Center where we are storing coats until they are processed. I like ot tell people that we will be on stage singing and dancing as we sort and bag coats. I always get a strange look. As I arrived I spotted Lion Louise dragging a large bag of coats up to the stage. She is my first lieutenant on the team. We dragged our sorting tables into place and attacked the pile of coats. The job is simple we merely place men’s, women’s, and children’s coats onto separate tables. The hardest part of the job is to tell the difference between a man’s and a women’s coat, followed by a teenager’s coat versus an older person’s coat. We don’t take a lot of time to decide it is simpler to make a mistake than it is to eat up time figuring it out.

Lion Mike showed up and I got him started bagging; ten to a bag all of the same gender. Close the bag and mark it with a piece of duct tape designating the gender, M, W, or C. It’s hard work, but somebody has to do it. Within forty-five minutes the three of us had sixteen bags of coats ready for delivery. I pushed the envelope and asked Louise or Mike if they were interested in delivering. Louise raised her hand to take sixty coats to the New Lenox Food Pantry on Monday, they are closed on Saturdays. Mike was headed into the direction of Morningstar Mission resale shop in New Lenox and said he would take sixty coats to them. That left me with forty coats which I drove over to the Salvation Army donation center in Chicago Heights.

The 2021 Winter Coat Drive is formally completed. All total we collected 550 coats from 1 November thru 15 December and delivered them to: The Frankfort Township Food Pantry, The South Suburban Crisis Center serving battered women, The Kibby & Vainney Angles NFP Inc,. serving the homeless of Joliet, Morningstar Mission, and the New Lenox Township Food Pantry. I estimate the dollar value of these used coats to be $5500.00, a sizable donation to the community. The Frankfort Lions have impacted five hundred and fifty people in need at a time when a coat is most appreciated.

Most of us don’t think about what life would be like without a coat to keep us warm during the cold months, but there are people among us who know what I’m talking about. The people who live on the street throughout the winter months are among the ones we target with this drive. I extend my fondest gratitude and thanks to those who donated coats, many with price tags still attached. We know you sacrificed to help others. The Frankfort Food Pantry has 300 families registered, and they are who we service first. I wish them a very warm and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Filed under: Biography, Lions Club, Warm and Fuzzy | Tagged: Coats, Food Pantry, Homeless | Leave a comment »

Coats, Coats, and More Coats

Posted on 16/12/2021 by Grumpa Joe

We are in the stretch now and the end is near. The Frankfort Lions Club project to collect used winter coats is declared a minor success. The count at this point is four hundred coats, men’s, women’s, and children’s combined. As luck would have it the temperature this week is between 50-60 degrees F. It is so mild out the thought of winter coats is dim. That will change quickly as the temp will drop again and we will once more scramble for warmth. I couldn’t believe how mild it was yesterday until l dashed out in my tee shirt to clear the mail box at the street. The dash wasn’t necessary it was beautiful. I could sustain life at such a winter temp.

Officially, winter hasn’t yet arrived. There are still five days remaining of fall. On the twenty-first of December we will reach the solstice where the axis of the earth is tilted farthest away from the sun. This tilt produces our shortest day as defined by sunrise and sunset. There will be a miserably short eight hours. In those hours we will strive to continue living a normal life. I remember the days when I spent a good part of one winter in Singapore and was impressed that the change in the length of their day was one hour. They went from having twelve hours of sunshine to eleven. Another thing that impressed me was how quickly it went from light to dark, Here in the mid-west of the USA we experience a gradual darkening which produces beautifully colorful sunsets, mornings are the same but in reverse.

Nevertheless, mankind has adapted to the seasonal changes by marking them with some holidays. The coming of winter brings us Christmas. It is a time when we decorate with lights to remind us that the Christ child was born on Christmas day. The lights also bring us cheer to raise our darkened spirits. Towns all across America decorate the town center with lights and many also have a huge Christmas tree lighted and decorated. Chicago, for instance raises a forty foot tall tree that has been donated by a resident. The tree must pass the muster of the tree inspector and if it does a crew comes out to your front yard, cuts it down, and hauls it to Daley Plaza . There, it is set up, lighted, and decorated for all of us to enjoy. A small cabin is erected beside the tree where Santa Claus holds court and listens to the wishes of kids who come to sit on his knee for a photo.

In my neighborhood there is Ginger Lane. The residents of this curving street have agreed to decorate their front yards and the parkway trees with lights. It turns into a magical ride through town. My wife and I love to walk it after supper end enjoy the gayety of the many colored lights, and the creative ways in which people wind strings of lights around bushes, trees and the house. I guarantee you would not be thinking of man-made global warming when you enjoy this five minute walk.

For years I thought we were the only ones on the planet who lit our spaces up, then I visited Singapore. Believe me they know how to light a place up for a holiday. They begin by decorating their business area for Christmas, and it is amazing. Then, they take a few days break and do it again for Chinese new year. WOW!