Providing Warmth to Half a Million People Each Year

Last year, One Warm Coat collected and distributed nearly 500,000 coats to children and adults across the U.S. and every one of them was free.

One Warm Coat is 34 years old and has always had zero overhead. Founded in San Francisco in 1992, One Warm Coat provides free coats to children and adults in need while promoting volunteerism and environmental sustainability. An all-digital organization, they have no office space or storage warehouse. Their programs enable thousands of volunteers (both individuals and organizations) to collect coats through community coat drives each year. The coats are then distributed to children and adults in need through a network of nearly 2,000 local nonprofit organizations across all 50 states.

“One Warm Coat’s nonprofit partner network is the heart of our program. These organizations serve local communities and represent a huge range of missions,” says Beth Amodio, the organization’s president and CEO. “They may serve veterans or people who are unhoused. Or, they may be a food pantry that serves low-income families.”

The nonprofit partner network is growing rapidly as the need across the country rises. Applications from nonprofits seeking partnership increased by more than 30 percent this past season. In addition, “Seventy percent of our partners served more individuals than they did the year before, and we don’t see that slowing down,” says Patti Zappa, executive vice president. With ongoing economic uncertainty, rising inflation, increased unemployment, and reduced services from government funding cuts, One Warm Coat’s simple but impactful goal of “sharing warmth” has more resonance now than ever. 

“Even within our partner network, we saw a big increase in how many nonprofits were reaching out and asking for help this year,” says Jen Hanes, director of nonprofit partnerships and sustainability. Sixty percent of their nonprofit partners did not receive enough coats to help all of the individuals and families in need last winter.

Amodio recalls an email from a young woman in New York whose grandmother had stopped turning on the heat. Rent and utilities had outrun her fixed income, and she needed a coat to wear inside her own apartment. “Senior citizens are one of the constituencies that have been impacted in a significant way,” Amodio says. 

Volunteer Coat Drives

One Warm Coat has facilitated 63,000 coat drives since 1992, organized by thousands of individual volunteers and organizations such as small businesses, schools, service clubs, and large companies.

And all of it doubles as environmental sustainability. Asking Americans to go through their closets and donate coats they don’t need or no longer wear has diverted 23.2 million pounds of textiles from landfills.