Staff Report
Gainesville Daily Register
Gainesville —
Roughly 1,200 coats were collected during annual benefit drives in 2010 and 2011, and after making many of them freely available to people in need, Cooke County’s All Babies Born Alive (ABBA) organization sold the rest at discount prices as a fundraiser.
The same is set for this year, organizers explain, and the proceeds will further ABBA’s pro-life cause.
After giving away a portion of the gathered coats, ABBA organizers will sell them for $5 each, on average, at the organization’s resale store at 214 N. Taylor St. in Gainesville.
The nonprofit agency offers aid for expecting mothers in various stages of pregnancy by helping provide counseling and job training and by securing practical resources such as ultrasounds and diapers. The agency’s educational outreach is pre-approved by Child Protective Services.
David Hampton, whose Dry Clean Super Center will clean the gathered coats for free before passing them along to ABBA, said the 2012 drive begins Nov. 19, and lasts through Dec. 15. Those who have coats to spare should consider passing them along.
Hampton has been involved with charity coat drives for more than 15 years in several markets through Texas and Oklahoma — and emphasized his own personal enthusiasm for ABBA, which is now a beneficiary from the coat drives for a fourth year.
Not only does he advocate the organization’s pro-life efforts, Hampton said, he also likes having a direct positive effect on the living.
“It’s important that everyone who needs a coat gets a coat, and that the community gets around to helping those who need it so that we don’t have to depend on government funding,” Hampton said. “It’s the local community — the people, churches, schools, businesses who help.”
Hampton added that in 2011, his donated effort of cleaning 1,200 coats had a value of around $10,000, and that’s roughly what he can expect to spend every year that he’s involved with this drive.
But he said the expense doesn’t bother him.
“Anything I can do to help people who need help, I do,” Hampton said. “I live and make a nice living in this community, and like Gov. Mitt Romney, I want to give the help to people that they need.” For more information about the upcoming coat drive, e-mail smoothsales@tx.rr.com or call (940) 665-0048.
