Coats for Kids!

Captain Willie Bailey and Fairfax and Alexandria firefighters in partnership with Operation Warm provided over 3000 brand new winter coats for kids in the Fairfax and Alexandria are this year.

                                             Excited pre-schoolers in their new winter coats 

On October 30, Captain Bailey held the annual Coats for Kids distribution event in Fire and Rescue Station No. 11 in the Penn Daw community. With children's coats in different colors and sizes piled up on tables lining the Fire Station, volunteers helped pre-scholars pick out their very own, new coat. Watching these children, who may have never owned a brand new piece of clothing, let along a warm winter coat, put on a coat in a color of their choosing was truly heart warming. 

The coats are specially designed for kids, including a reflective zipper and reflective cuffs, a covering for the zipper at the top of the coat, and a name tag in the inside. As a bonus, this year, all coats were made in America, saving 200 jobs! 

Coats for Kids, which started with Captain Willie Bailey and the Fairfax County Firefighters, is now a national movement organized by Operation Warm. A second coat distribution will take place at the Charles Houston Recreation Center later in November. 

Thanks to a grant from the RunningBrooke Fund and to our ACTion heroes who helped donate money for coats, ACTion Alexandria was able to raise money for 20 coats for the coat drive. Would you like to be involved? Take ACTion today! http://www.actionalexandria.org/action/help-firefighters-provide-50-coats-50-kids

Thank you to Captain Willie Bailey, Operation Warm, and all of the volunteers

who help keep kids warm every winter!