While temperatures to start October have been warmer than usual, eventually winter will settle in and the Washington Public Library is hosting Warm Up Washington.

Director of library Debbie Stanton shares they have a drop box at the entrance of the library for people to donate coats and hats, “It could be all ages. We have had people come in and ask, ‘Will we take adults coats?’ Absolutely. So we’ll take kids coats, we just want to make sure they’re in nice condition.” They’ll accept all sizes and the coats will be laundered by the YMCA before they are handed out.

Stanton adds the coats are distributed in a way that respects people’s privacy, “Last year, we did something a little different, we set up our basement ReBook room almost like a little boutique shop. There can be some stigma attached to just taking anything from the community, so even though people might need the coats they might feel uncomfortable with it. So Jolisa did a great job of setting it up, so that there was a mirror in there, and we had all the coats hanging up. She found hats that matched with the coats and laid them out, so it really was like a shopping experience. So people could go and try on the coats, and we didn’t even have it manned so that we made sure to honor people’s privacy and their ability to just go down there and look at what was available.”

The coats will again be set up that way this year. Coat donations can be dropped off during library hours.