The New York Jets, in conjunction with Burgdorff Realtors ERA and A-1 First Class-Viking Moving and Storage, will hold their annual coat drive to benefit Jersey Cares on Sunday at the Meadowlands from 2:15-4:15 p.m. prior to the Jets-Denver Broncos game. Fans are encouraged to bring new or gently used coats that will be collected at all gates upon entering the stadium.
The Jersey Cares Coat Drive is an annual lifeline for New Jersey's neediest citizens during the winter months. Last year, the Jersey Cares coat drive supplied more than 31,000 warm, gently used winter coats to children, women and men who desperately needed them.
Again this year, Jersey Cares will work with more than 200 corporations and organizations across New Jersey to publicize the drive and collect coats in their locations, creating a network of publicity and community action for this effort that breeds its great success. Jersey Cares, with extensive volunteer support, will organize the coats and then distribute them to more than 150 non-profit agencies serving thousands of New Jerseyans in need. Click here for a complete list of public collection sites.
In addition to the coat drive at the stadium, the Jets are supporting the 20th annual New York Cares Coat Drive through a $1,000 donation and the recording of PSAs by safety Kerry Rhodes and wide receiver Chansi Stuckey urging New Yorkers to give coats. The Jets and New York Cares are also asking people to donate their gently used coats throughout the month of December at the following venues:
* Any New York Police Department Precinct.
* Weekday mornings at Grand Central Terminal, Penn Station, and the NY Port Authority Bus Terminal.
* The U.S. Coast Guard Recruiting Station.
* Anytime at The Pond at Bryant Park, Janovic Paint and Decorating Centers, Oz Moving and Storage, and Time Warner Cable stores.
* At hundreds of private coat collection sites in the region. Visit the New York Cares Website for a complete list.)
Ninety percent of homeless adults need a new, warm coat each winter because they have no place to keep one over the summer months. But it's not just the homeless who need help. Thousands of people in the New York area are forced to make a choice between buying a winter coat and putting food on the table or meeting other basic survival needs. New York Cares has collected and distributed over one million coats since the inception of the coat drive 20 years ago. For more information please visit www.nycares.org.
Programs funded by the New York Jets Foundation touch the lives of countless young men and women in the tristate area. Realogy Corporation, a premier global provider of real estate and relocation services, and its subsidiary companies Burgdorff Realtors ERA and Cartus are title sponsors for all of the Jets' community relations programs. Over the past eight years, the Jets and their charitable foundation have donated or contributed more than $8 million to promote youth health, fitness and education, particularly in disadvantaged communities.
From fighting childhood obesity through the Generation Jets: Be Lean & Green initiative to launching a football team in a Harlem high school, urging students in the Bronx to eat right and move more, and supporting the efforts of the Alliance for Lupus Research, the New York Jets invest in programs that make a difference in the lives of others. In addition to the Jets Foundation, which supports our own extensive youth initiatives, the Jets partner with numerous established charitable organizations and participate in causes sponsored by the NFL.
