Adelphi University Center Students Hosting Coat Drive

The Hauppauge Center of Adelphi University is once again coordinating it's "warm drive," to collect gently-used coats and blankets for those in need this winter.

It is the second year that the Hauppauge center is leading the collection, which was brought about last year when social work students saw the struggle families experienced to keep warm that during their field studies.

"They were finding not only homeless, but impoverished people having trouble keeping warm. They didn’t have coats. They didn’t have blankets. The students wanted to do something to help," Lynn Schulman, director of the Hauppauge Center Social Work program, said.

Last year, the center collected more than 4,000 items for the warm drive. This year is even more important, Schulman said.

"This year, with the wonderful community response from Hurricane Sandy, it has diverted attention to some of the long standing problems here on Long Island. So we need to ask the community to dig deep, even more than they had before," she said.

Students are asking residents to drop off blankets and winter coats or bags of used clothing to the center on Kennedy Drive through Jan. 18. The clothing will be collected by Pronto, a nonprofit agency in Brentwood, and distributed to the needy across Suffolk County.