Nov 27, 2008 7:55 am US/Eastern
Donated Coats On Thanksgiving Day Menu
John Curran, AP Writer
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) ―
On Thanksgiving, the menu at Sweetwater's will have all the staples -- turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing and dessert. The free meal will come with something extra, too: a free coat.
The Burlington restaurant, which has been feeding the needy at Thanksgiving for 18 years, stages a coat drive as part of its annual celebration.
On Thursday, restaurant staffers and volunteers will move about 1,000 secondhand parkas, topcoats, ski jackets and windbreakers onto a patio and let customers have their choice, whether they stay for the sitdown meal or not.
"Some of the people that come to visit us that day, a coat is like a vehicle to them," said Pam Schirner, the general manager of the restaurant. "The warmer they can be for the winter, the better."
The restaurant, which occupies a converted 19th-century bank building on the city's bustling Church Street Marketplace, has been hosting its Thanksgiving Day event since 1990. Many of the guests are homeless, or clients of the COTS shelters nearby, or working-class families that for one reason or another can't put on their own feast.
"They get up from the table and sometimes they have tears in their eyes, saying `Thank you,"' said Sweetwater's owner David Melincoff.
Sometimes, people who ate there the previous Thanksgiving when they needed the handout return to work the event as volunteers. Sometimes, out-of-town visitors who don't realize it's free find out when they ask for the check and don't get one, Schirner said.
Typically, it costs the restaurant about $10,000 to put on the meal, which is served from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is expected to draw about 600 people this year.
The coat drive aspect has taken on a life of its own. Each year, Sweetwater's begins appealing for donated coats in early November, collecting them at two off-site drop-off points.
Then they're brought in plastic garbage bags to the restaurant, where volunteers pull them out, check them over and sort them into men's, women's and children's.
"Just being able to do this for people who need clothes, I think it's awesome, especially in a state like Vermont that gets so cold," said volunteer Catherine Murphy, 65, of Burlington, who was sorting coats on the second floor of the restaurant Wednesday afternoon.
"It's great being able to be part of it," said Murphy, who was accompanied by her husband, John Murphy, 69. Both planned to return on Thanksgiving Day to help serve the meal.
Last year, about 2,000 coats were distributed.
"When you're homeless and you're cold and it's winter in Vermont, a good coat is great to find," said Deb Bouton, community service coordinator for COTS, which stands for Committee on Temporary Shelter.
This year, Sweetwater's reached out to the Vermont Farm Bureau in hopes of getting word to farmhands who might need a place to go.
Tim Buskey, the Farm Bureau's administrator, sent e-mails to members of the Addison County Migrant Worker Coalition to let them know about the free meal.
"We just put it out because they wanted the workers to know this was a place they could go if they're so inclined," said Buskey. "The response has been `Boy, that's wonderful, we'll make sure everyone knows."'
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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