Retail Chain to Donate Record Number of Winter Coats to Veterans

A Rhode Island-based department store chain plans to donate a record number winter coats to veterans in Massachusetts and the rest of the Northeast.

Ocean State Job Lot, with a store in North Adams, expects 42,000 coats will be doled out thanks to its fourth annual Coats4Vets campaign. The number is a far cry from the roughly 1,000 coats handed out in the first year of the philanthropic effort, according to Executive Director of Ocean State Job Lots Charitable Foundation, David Sarlitto.

He says, through regional veteran support agencies, the winter apparel is distributed in all of New England, eastern New York, northern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. The retailer has a total of 142 stores in the nine states.

Company officials, through an email, say the coats eventually reach local American Legions, VFWs, federal Veterans Administration hospitals and other groups.

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