New Haven Collects Winter Coats for Kids

Many children in New Haven are braving the winter months without coats, and the police department hopes to change that.

"We often feed people who need food, we cloth people who need clothing, we hug people when they need a moment of compassion, and we can use all the help we can get," said New Haven police Chief Dean Esserman.

The help is coming from the Knights of Columbus, which donated 300 coats to the police department as part of the Knights' Coats for Kids campaign.

"We learned in the winter time there are children who aren't able to go to school because they don't have a warm coat to get there," explained Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl Anderson. "So, we thought, 'Gee, if we can do this.' And it's not very expensive. We buy the coats whole sale and then split the cost with our local councils."

New Haven police Lt. Sam Brown has seen first-hand how many kids in New Haven are left in the cold.

"It's not that they don't want to wear a coat, it's that they don't have one," said Brown.

He took the donation a step further and came up with the idea to have police officers keep the coats in their cruisers to hand them out whenever they see a child without a coat.

"That's extremely important because you get to meet the need immediately, right on scene," said Brown.

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