To donate a clean, gently used coat to our One Warm Coat campaign, drop it off during the month of December at the following times at our two designated locations:

FRANK'S PASTA & GRILL
426 King St. E.
Cobourg, ON
Daily, noon to 8 PM

93 WALTON ST.
Port Hope, ON
Tuesdays 11 am-2 pm
Thursdays 5-8 pm
Saturdays 11 am-2 pm

To make a cash donation to Green Wood's community program fund, use the DONATE NOW button on this site, or mail to P.O. Box 61, Port Hope, ON L1A 2Z2.
   

While the need for warm coats has never been greater, it has also never been easier to meet this vital need in our community. Green Wood Coalition invites area residents to join them in an effort to ensure that no one goes without a warm coat this winter.

Green Wood Coalition is holding a One Warm Coat drive and will be collecting clean, gently used warm coats. One Warm Coat is dedicated to collecting and distributing gently used warm coats--free of charge and without discrimination—directly to children and adults in the local area. The coat drive program provides an easy way for individuals and families to make a difference in the lives of their neighbors by simply passing along winter coats that are no longer needed.

When she heard that a winter clothing program for people living in poverty was not available this year, Nicole Whitmore knew she needed to do something to help. “I’ve been there, I know what it means to be cold and not have the resources to buy warm clothing.”  For one in ten Northumberland County residents who live in poverty, purchasing a winter coat is an unaffordable luxury. Nicole is hoping that there are others in the community who will also help those who are in need of winter clothing. 

Nicole is a part-time Outreach Worker with Green Wood Coalition, a grassroots charity that connects struggling individuals and families with services that can help them. After getting the support of the Coalition, she then approached two local businesses about becoming partners in a local One Warm Coat drive through the month of December.

Frank’s Pasta & Grill (462 King St. E., Cobourg) will launch the One Warm Coat campaign with a December 4 (6-11 PM) event that will feature live music and great food. They will be accepting coat donations that evening, and will be the Cobourg drop-off location throughout the month. Oliver Steins of Ganaraska Art & Framing in Port Hope has offered the use of his new store space that would otherwise be empty until he moves his business there in January.  

Green Wood Coalition invites you to bring your clean, new or gently used, coats and jackets to either location during the month of December. The process is simple: you drop off your extra coat and Green Wood Coalition takes care of the rest, distributing coats to local people in need.  If you do not have a coat to donate, you can help to meet individual needs by donating to Green Wood’s community program fund (eligible for charitable tax receipt).

Crack cocaine has been receiving a lot of press lately, but very little of the talk has helped us to understand the nature of the drug and its place in our communities. An op-ed piece in The Ottawa Citizen by  Dr. Mark Tyndall, a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, probes our popular understanding of crack, which may stand in the way of helping those with addictions.

"We have been conditioned through the media and by the spread of popular misconceptions that crack is untreatable and a serious threat to our cities. That crack users are a menace to society and that criminal punishment is the only way to curb the problem. The response has been to use the criminal justice system to seek out the dealers and the users and to round them up and put them in jail. All this at the expense of any reasonable dialogue, research, or even interest in prevention, treatment or the social and mental health challenges that got people started in the first place."  -Dr. Mark Tyndall

Read the full article here