Kym Porter and Helen Snortland have organized the Coats on Finlay drive for years, they say. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

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An annual winter coat drive is taking place at Finlay Bridge this weekend.

The Coats on Finley event invites those who need a winter coat to come to the two-lane downtown bridge to pick one up between noon on Saturday until 8 a.m. on Sunday.

Those who wish to donate coats can do so anytime Saturday afternoon as there will be volunteers on-site to hang them up.

Organizers Kym Porter and Helen Snortland have been running the donation drive since before the pandemic and say it’s more important than ever to provide for those who need a warm coat.

It’s not just those who are unhoused or live in encampments that need coats but also families facing an cost of living crisis.

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“With the economy these days it’s it’s expensive to go out and get them new gear every year, so we see families come down,” Porter said.

New residents from warmer climates also benefit from the free coats, she added.

“Last year we had a family — they’d only been in Canada for a couple of weeks and they were from Africa, I believe — and so Helen went out on the bridge and helped him shop for his family.”

The coat drive has become a community-wide effort in recent years, according to Snortland.

“I have coats with price tags on them, people are just so generous and they remember from year-to-year,” she said.

“The community’s taken this project over.”

Coats that aren’t taken from the bridge will be delivered to the Caring Coats program at Medicine Hat’s Salvation Army, where people can get them for free throughout the year.