By KARA O’NEIL
Staff writer
The Oil City Fire Department distributed about 600 coats for children in need to all the school districts in Venango County through the department’s Coats for Kids program.
Because of COVID, the boxes of coats were taken to each school district at the end of October for the schools to hand out to the children, said John Horn, an Oil City firefighter who organizes the coat drive every year.
The goal of the Oil City and Franklin firefighters is to provide a winter coat for every child in Venango County from kindergarten through fourth or fifth grade (depending on their size) who needs one.
“I know first hand of kids getting removed from a house with nothing in the winter…here at least they can give them a coat,” Horn said.
“We normally order adult size coats for some of the larger kids but we couldn’t get them this year. The coats are sitting on a boat somewhere in the Pacific,” Horn said. He explained that they couldn’t even order the coats.
Fortunately, Horn said, there were some adult-size coats left over from last year.
On the other hand, the child-size coats were received within three or four days of placing the order, he said.
The order of 600 coats came in at just under $13,000, Horn said. He added that firefighters had some money left over from previous years that they spent on coats this year.
Horn noted that the company the fire department buys the coats from has started offering tennis shoes as well.
“It might be close to $30,000 to raise to hand out the same number of coats and shoes,” he said.
This year, Horn said, firefighters planned to hold a street collection, but they were busy with calls on the day they had picked out so they weren’t able to hold the drive.
Horn said the fire department accepts donations for Coats for Kids all year.
Monetary contributions can be sent to or dropped off at the Oil City Fire Department at 404 Central Ave. Checks can be made payable to Oil City Firefighters Local 700.
