Every year volunteers for the Buy Nothing Day Coat Exchange collect and distribute winter coats to people in need on the day after Thanksgiving outside the Rhode Island State House in Providence. (Courtesy of Buy Nothing Coat Exchange)
Every year on the morning after Thanksgiving, as eager shoppers queue up for sales at Providence Place mall, another line forms across the street on the Rhode Island State House lawn for the Buy Nothing Day Coat Exchange.
For over two decades, the coat drive has provided around 1,500 free winter coats per year to people in need — primarily unhoused people, refugee and low-income families and those recently released from incarceration.
This year’s coat exchange will take place on Friday, Nov. 29, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The National Weather Service forecass clear dry skies for Friday morning. But in the event of inclement weather, the coat exchange will take place at the nearby Gloria Dei Church, 15 Hayes St., Providence.
The coat drive was founded in 1997 by local activist Greg Gerritt and some friends on a platform of anti-consumerism and sustainability, said its co-director Lauren Testoni, who runs the exchange with her mother. But the number of people who come to the coat drive also brings Rhode Island’s housing crisis to the attention of state lawmakers, Testoni added.
“We’re there to let state officials know, ‘Hey, this is a real problem,’” said Testoni, an East Greenwich event planner. “Look at the line of people that come to just pick up a coat the day after Thanksgiving.”
The location lies along multiple bus routes. Coats travel statewide through partnerships with community service organizations, including Clothes to Kids RI, Sojourner House, Mathewson Street Church and the RI Coalition to End Homelessness, according to the exchange’s website.
Each year, volunteers send out the initial call for donations on Labor Day weekend before setting up collection locations. A week before Thanksgiving, Testoni drives a 26-foot U-Haul to each location to amass the coats, which she stores at her house until the day after Thanksgiving. Over the years, the exchange has grown from lining one clothing rack to filling the entire truck, in addition to day-of donations dropped directly at the State House, Testoni said.
Often, people who collected a free coat one year come back the next year to volunteer. “No matter how much we evolve, it keeps that grassroots feel,” she added.
Testoni said she began volunteering when she was 15 after her parents instilled community service values in her family. Around six years ago, she and her mother answered Gerritt’s “all-call” for coat drive coordinators when he decided to retire.
“There are whole families out here really trying to better their lives… and so they’re there, the day after Thanksgiving at 8:30 in the morning, standing in line,” Testoni said. “For a lot of people, this is a life or death situation.”
Volunteers distribute leftover coats to local organizations after the exchange, Testoni said.
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