What a wonderful conference --

The National Conference on Volunteering and Service, June 22 to 24 in San Francisco was absolutely amazing. An opening session headlined by Michelle Obama, supported by stars and politicos (Gov. Schwarzenegger and Representative Nancy Pelosi were balanced by Jon Bon Jovi and Mathew McCaughney) let the 5,000 attendees know how important and appreciated they were.

Two days of back-to-back, informative sessions, lots of networking and three days of great weather. By Wednesday most of the people walking around the exhibit area had a "glazed look" in their eyes.


One Warm Coat had an exhibit booth, right next to the food service (good planning on our part) and we met so many people who had organized coat drives -- and more importantly for this coming Fall, lots of people who expressed interest in setting up a coat drive in their community.


It was an inspiring event -- so glad it was in our home town. Check out our flickr page to see the booth rise up, in less than 30 minutes.

It IS a small world --

I went into a scrapbook supply store the other day -- what an amazing world of ideas, oh my! -- and was working with a saleswoman on the right paper for our table top displays for the National Conference on Volunteerism & Service.

When I pulled out the pages that would be displayed, she saw that it was for One Warm Coat. She was so proud to tell me that her two daughters had created a One Warm Coat drive last winter.

This summer they are continuing their "good works" by asking friends to clean closets for a new children's clothing store that will GIVE items to families in need.

This warms my heart --

New tools and resources

I just finished uploading photographs of flyers to our Flickr site. This gives us an opportunity to show some of the great ways that people are promoting their coat drive. We'll continue to upload flyers, photos and other items that our Organizers send to us.

And speaking of Organizers, we heard from several folks that STICKERS would be a neat item to give out at a coat drive. We will be sending FREE a sheet of square One Warm Coat logo stickers with each Promotion Package this Fall.

This year's Promo Packages will include the 3' x 3' banner, 2 box labels, and a sheet of stickers.

We're still pulling together items for the Promo Package, so let us know if you have any ideas or suggestions.