WICU12

More than 1,000 local children will be a little bit warmer over the next several months. Operation Warm today distributed  new coats to many community agencies. Those agencies will give the coats to needy kids, and it will allow their families use their money for food, rent, fuel and other items. The $15,000 needed to buy the cots comes from the PNC Foundation, Erie Insurance, Highmark Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Auto Racers for Kids, and the Merwin Foundation. Vern Peterson of the Sara Reed Children's Center said, "Many of the children who show up at our residential treatment programs have absolutely nothing but the clothes on their back and a small backpack of clothes that have followed them. This program provides them brand new coats just in time for the snowfall. It is just a fantastic program." Operation Warm has provided 600,000 coats to needy kids across the country over the past 11 years. But this is the first year the program has been in Erie.

Paul Wagner