Sudbury Clothing Drive
Each year, the Sudbury Clothing Drive is one of the most successful charitable events in the Greater City of Sudbury. The winter clothing drive is an initiative that was developed to help bring warmth to the Sudbury community. So far, our Sudbury Branch has collected over 100,000 winter clothing items in the past 8 years.
In 2019, the Cooper Sudbury team along with their charity partner Our Children Our Future and local community partners organized 110 clothing drop-off sites, in addition to the public drop-off at the Cooper Sudbury branch.
With all the clothing donations they were able to fill 4 shipping containers full of clothes, all brought together within the greater Sudbury region. This was accomplished with help from wonderful community organizations like Sudbury Catholic schools, municipal libraries, the local OHL team, a national basketball team, the local college and university, Rainbow District School Board, Vale & Glencore, Hydro One, and Brady Storage.
Due to the pandemic, the 2020 event had to be run virtually. Luckily, the Sudbury team still had all their partners supporting and promoting the event by asking community members to drop off their donations at 4 partnering sites. They also had to pivot in how they facilitated donations by setting up appointment-only pick up. The volunteers also wore PPE while sorting donations keeping safety in mind, to protect themselves and their community. Although the pandemic may have slowed the fundraiser down, it certainly didn’t stop it from being a success with over 10,000 items collected in 2020!
The success of the Sudbury Clothing drive year after year demonstrates not only the Sudbury team’s commitment and dedication to this initiative, but also displays the strong support the Cooper team provides throughout their community to make this initiative such a success over the years.
Number of clothing items collected each year:
- In 2014, their initial goal was 500 coats
- In 2017, 14,431 winter clothing items
- In 2019, 26,000 winter clothing items
- In 2020, over 10,000 winter clothing items
- In 2022, over 12,000 winter clothing items
How did the Sudbury winter clothing drive start?
It all started twenty-three years ago with Derek Cashmore, Cooper’s Sales Manager for Northern Ontario. Derek’s daughter came home one day with no jacket because she had given hers to a friend at school who didn’t have one. Derek thought it would be a great idea for the community to pitch in and bring a bunch of coats to the school for the kids who needed them. Derek continued this tradition when he joined Cooper in 2014 and from there each year the fundraiser has gained momentum into what it is today.
To learn more about the impact made by the Sudbury Clothing Drive, check out the Facebook page.
