Hundreds of Harrisburg students outfitted with new winter coats through Operation Warm

• Rachel McDevitt/StateImpact Pennsylvania
  BioRecent Stories

  

  I report on energy and the environment for StateImpact Pennsylvania at WITF.
  
  My work focuses on responses and solutions to climate change in the state legislature and communities around the state. I trace my interest in these issues back to my time as a Girl Scout and this episode of Rocko’s Modern Life.
  
  I look forward to winter just for the chance to ski a few times each season. I try to keep myself from doom-scrolling on my phone by keeping my hands busy knitting and learning to play the piano.
  
  I grew up in Cambria County, Pa. and graduated from Temple University. I started at WITF just after Christmas in 2014.

 Rachel McDevitt / WITF

A volunteer from IGS Energy fits a Foose Elementary School student with a new winter coat in Harrisburg on Wednesday, October 9th, 2019. More than 500 coats were donated through the nonprofit Operation Warm.

(Harrisburg) — Hundreds of students at a midstate elementary school have new coats for the upcoming winter.

The coats were donated by natural gas provider IGS Energy through the nonprofit Operation Warm.

Inside the gym at Foose Elementary School in Harrisburg Wednesday morning, IGS volunteers led kids to long tables piled high with puffy winter coats and helped them each find one that fit.

Lindsey Hoover, IGS Energy’s regional support coordinator for Pennsylvania, said the experience warmed her heart.

“A lot of the children, as we understand, don’t have the opportunity to get a coat, not even for themselves but with a new tag on it. So, just to see the smiles on their faces, to have something brand new that is their own really puts a smile to my face,” Hoover said.

Rachel McDevitt / WITF

A volunteer from IGS Energy offers a new winter coat to student at Foose Elementary School in Harrisburg on Wednesday, October 9th, 2019. More than 500 coats were donated through the nonprofit Operation Warm.

Foose has 550 kindergarten through 4th grade students and all of them qualify for free or reduced priced lunch.

Principal Will Hicks said many of the school’s students walk to school, and he’s grateful to know they will be warm on their way to class this winter.

“I’m out front in the mornings and I’ve witnessed kids coming to school without jackets, wearing sweatshirts, even t-shirts in the middle of the winter and just to know they’re going to have a winter jacket is incredible,” Hicks said.

Operation Warm, based outside Philadelphia, partners with businesses like IGS to provide about 450,000 coats each year in high-need schools.

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