Mobile Couch: NYC Winter Coat Drive

NEW YORK (WLNY) -- The 25th Annual New York Care Coat Drive is ending in less than a month and the need for donations remains high.

The group has been struggling to meet the demand this year.

"This year we have received requests for coats of over 100,000," New York Cares executive director Gary Bagley told WLNY's Alex Denis."This is a particularly important year because we have been behind in coat donations."

Bagley said their supply is down 35 percent, while the demand is up by 25 percent compared with an average year.

"It's a remarkable need in the city," Bagley said. "We're serving over 400 agencies in this coat drive."

The Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association decided to help out and donated 4,000 coats on Wednesday.

"We went around to the car dealers, we asked the car dealers to have drop-off points in the Greater New York area, and we had over 50 car dealers participate," the association's president, Neil Kuperman, said.

"It's really rewarding to see a lot of our new car dealers to say, 'We gotta get involved with this great program that's going on,'" the association's president, Mark Schienberg, said.

"Having a year when our donations are lower makes it an even more dramatic problem for us, and donations like this to be even more important in terms of making a dent," Bagley.

New or gently used coats can be donated to police precincts across the five boroughs, Bryant Park and other drop-off locations through Feb. 7.

Click here to find a drop-off location.

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