HIGHER SENIORITY: Cash to coats

The Herald Bulletin

September 27, 2008 11:38 pm

— CHESTERFIELD — Guin McClain won’t let her children or grandchildren buy her clothes or trinkets for Christmas.
Instead, they give her money.
McClain takes the cash and buys coats that are given to needy area children through her congregation at Chesterfield Christian Church Disciples of Christ.
“I told the kids, I don’t need anything more for Christmas. I’ve got all the stuff I need,” she said.
Last year, she took the money and went searching for holiday sales. She bought 31 coats.
“This year I ended up with 44. Instead of going to a movie, I go buy a coat and that’s my fun for the day,” she said.
She donates the coats to her church at 207 E. Plum St.
The church holds an annual Children’s Coat Giveaway. This year, the event is Saturday, Oct. 18, from 8 a.m. until all the coats have been given away.
The giveaway is open to the public. Sizes range from infants to teens, and children and youth must be accompanied by a parent.
Jim Dunn is chairman of the Outreach Social Action Committee and throughout the years has planned many events for needy families such as Thanksgiving baskets and Christmas projects.
McClain dropped off her 44 coats last week.
“She was just ecstatic and she loves doing this,” said congregation member Genell Keown.
When McClain started her coat collecting, she had heard of similar coat donations and thought this would be a more personal way of giving.
But the idea probably started when she was an 8-year-old girl growing up in Bluffton in northeastern Indiana. Her father was a district administrator for the Works Progress Administration, created in 1935 to provide jobs and income to the unemployed.
McClain recalled mornings when she would awaken, walk to her family’s kitchen and see a stranger sitting there. Visitors would drop by to seek assistance — money or a job — from McClain’s father.
“There would be a woman sitting there, crying and saying, ‘My child is hungry. Can you get me on the WPA? Can you please help me get a job?’
“That left such an impression on me that I thought what if you had children and couldn’t afford to feed them or clothe them.”
For McClain, the best time to buy coats is during the holiday, post-Christmas sales.
“That’s what is fun. I think I got some for only $10 and they’re good coats,” she said.
“The coats keep me pretty well occupied,” she said, “but the closet sure is empty now.”