By: Tom Markland
INWOOD – Over the weekend, around two dozen poles stood in a park across the street from Taylor’s Farm Market, many of them covered in donated clothing from members of the South Berkeley community.
Those donations were a part of the area’s annual “Warm Hearts and Warm Hands” clothing drive, a community outreach effort built to help local kids keep warm in the winter. Throughout the weekend, community members stopped by and dropped off items like hats, gloves, scarves, and for the first time this year, socks.
The event is organized by Joyce Kees and her husband, Jim. Kees, an administrator of the Facebook Group ‘South Berkeley Social Club’, started the event 11 years ago.
Kees and other volunteers started the event by driving around to local bus stops and handing out items to kids standing outside who needed them. In their first year, they collected 200 items, growing over the decade to 5,000 items they gifted last year.
“I certainly thank everyone in the community that’s came out,” Kees said. “We hope to be here bigger and stronger next year because the need is certainly out there.”
While this year’s count isn’t complete yet, Kees predicts that the number of items donated this year will be similar to last year’s count. She estimates that over the past 11 years, they’ve helped over 30,000 kids keep warm.
As Kees and other volunteers worked to pack up the clothes people had donated on Sunday, community members kept stopping by, even after the event had ended, to drop off clothing. One community member was Carla Hopkins of St. Leo’s Catholic Church’s Knights of Columbus.
“We’ve donated coats and hats and scarves every year for 11 years,” Hopkins said.
Once they’re sorted, the clothing will be donated to schools throughout Berkeley County as well as the Boys and Girls Club.
“I like to say that every item counts and every student matters,” Kees said. “We have folks from the community of all ages come out and take a walk in this beautiful park all weekend long.”
“We have a wonderful, caring community and I appreciate everybody,” Kees added.