Coat drive brings warmth this season
The sixth-grade coat drive committee with 234 collected coats for adults and children. Left to right: Lennon Bergen, Peter Howell Bailey, Oakley Mino, Anja Ward, Zoey Baer, Eva Morel, Lisa Dorenfeld (parent volunteer) and Diana Lucas Visser (DCSM teacher).
Continuing a decade-long tradition, sixth graders at DCS Montessori (DCSM) collected gently used and new coats to provide warmth for adults and kids this winter season. A total of 234 coats were collected during daily school dropoffs and pickups and distributed to Rogers Elementary School and middle school Coperni 3, both in School District 11 in Colorado Springs. The program included adult coats, which supported Partners in Housing, a transitional housing nonprofit, also in Colorado Springs. There is no paperwork or wait list; coats were immediately distributed to families in need.
School District 11 has on average 800 kids who are homeless or in foster care at any time. “I was surprised that there were people who couldn’t afford coats,” said sixth-grader Oakley Mino, who helped organize the drive. “That there are entire schools that have this need was also surprising to me.”
Each sixth-grade classroom elected two committee members to have weekly meetings starting at the beginning of September. The committee oversaw advertisement design and communication to the entire school community and visited individual classrooms, hung posters, collected, sorted and counted coats and helped load the donation truck. “The sixth graders operated very independently, with supervision,” said Diana Lucas Visser, DCSM teacher, project sponsor and Canyons resident.
“The committee needed a lot of teamwork. I got to know people I didn’t know before and now we are great friends,” said coat drive committee member Anja Ward.
Sixth grade is a leadership year at DCSM. As part of The Empowerment Project, students choose a social issue to volunteer for and write a research paper about the cause. “The coat drive helped prepare the students for the Empowerment Project that they will take on next semester,” concluded Diana, who added they plan to continue running the coat drive every year.
DCS Montessori sixth graders encouraging their school community to donate much-needed coats to School District 11 in Colorado Springs. Left to right: Anja Ward, Julia Coarcoana, Iyla Crawford and Owen King.
By Julie Matuszewski; photos courtesy of DCS Montessori
