The YMCA of Rome and Floyd County is starting the New Year with a major outreach program to meet a need in the community. The Y is conducting a coat drive for the community through Jan. 12-13 when coats will be distributed at the YMCA Second Avenue.

The mission of the YMCA is three-pronged, youth development, health living and social responsibility. Cheryl Bishop, director of development at the YMCA said that the organization has always done a tremendous job in terms of its youth development and healthy living legs of the three-legged mission statement and wanted to zero in on the social responsibility leg.

“At staff meetings we have been brainstorming on the ways we could more wholly live that last part of the mission,” said Bishop. “Several of us, pretty much independently, all came up with the idea of why couldn’t we do a coat drive.”

The YMCA has a huge membership base and has the ideal site to distribute the coats since the Y is on public transportation and is handicapped accessible.

Anyone who expresses a need with is able to get a coat on the weekend of January 12-13. “We’ll follow our guts but if you come in and say I need a coat, you can take a coat with you,” Bishop said.” Adult, children and infants coats are all needed and Bishop said that Y members have already filled four or five large boxes that were donated by The Home Depot. “I don’t know what the churches have collected for us,” Bishop said.

Contributors can drop off coats in good condition at the YMCA, First Baptist Church in Rome or the Church on the Rock in Lindale. Rome Cleaners is also collecting for the campaign.