Koats for Kids | Photo by Kayli Thompson | The Wright State Guardian
Wright State University (WSU) social work seniors Kira Dean, Rebekah Wyse and Jasmine Kiner started the Koats4Kids fundraiser this year to ensure that no child at Fairborn Primary School had to suffer without a winter coat this season.
No child goes cold
After seeing a child walk home cold while in middle school, Co-founder Kira Dean started Koats4Kids with other co-founders Rebekah Wyse and Jasmine Kiner.
“I’ve felt a very big passion for helping kids since, probably, I was a kid… My eighth-grade year I saw a young boy walking home and he was just so cold, he was shivering, and I think since that moment I’ve always wanted to do something to help and I was lucky enough to get paired with both Rebekah and Jasmine who feel that amount of passion to help others,” said Dean.
Dean, Wyse and Kiner understood that individuals might have a hard time donating coats currently during the coronavirus hardships, but they said that it is another reason why it was so important to put together this fundraiser now–because so many families are down on their luck, meaning some kids would have had to go without a winter coat this year.
“We know the hardships that parents are going through right now. We’re still learning and seeing that there are a lot of people still that are unemployed and I know that when we did the survey, [the parents] talked about how this was really helpful and how they’re really grateful,” said Kiner.
Despite the worry that people would not be able to donate, Koats4Kids reached their goal this season, showing how eager the community is to help one another during troubling times.
“Overall, I would say it’s very important that people not only advocate for themselves but advocate for others, especially going through such hard times,” said Dean.
The ups and downs
Dean said that one of the biggest challenges the Koats4Kids team faced was finding people who were financially able to donate, especially after learning that Fairborn Primary School has about 1,400 students.
“We definitely had a lot of difficulties just because of the virus in general. COVID-19 has definitely caused a lot of push-backs and different things to take place that we weren’t expecting. I think one of our biggest things that we were not expecting would be the number of students that Fairborn Primary has, which is over 1,400. That was definitely very shocking to us,” said Dean.
Although they were prepared to gather 1,400 coats, the team found through their surveys that a significantly lower number of students were actually in need of coats this season. With the reduced number, Koats4Kids reached their goal in record time with coats left over for other schools.
“So our overall goal was, of course, to reach as close to the 1,400 as possible. However, once we got the survey’s back we did need quite a bit less than that… so we have actually, now, reached our goal after collections so we’re very thankful for everyone that has been able to donate,” said Dean.
“We got tons and tons of coats. We have tons of coats left over. We have 300 coats left over,” said Kiner.
Continuing Koats4Kids
Wyse, Kiner and Dean are all social work seniors, but they hope to be able to mentor incoming students and get them ready to continue Koats4Kids after they’re graduated.
One thing the team did was send out surveys to better understand the needs of the community and get feedback as well. Wyse says they hope to use the results from these surveys to get the new social work students ready to continue on the fundraiser.
“So we basically wanted to do a mini-research study… So the pre-survey is what are the needs of the community and the post survey will be ‘did we meet that need and how can we improve upon that?’ We’re hoping that it’s a possibility to continue this program for years to come,” said Wyse.
