Coats of Friendship: Sharing the gift of warmth has given this teen a mission for life
Tristan Rankin enjoys the same things as most high school students.
He plays football and throws javelin and discus on the track and field team, skateboards, plays guitar and loves to put his music online.
But unlike other teenagers, the Susquehannock High School sophomore also runs his own nonprofit organization. It's an endeavor he began when he was 6 years old.
Rankin, now 15, collects and distributes thousands of new and gently used coats, hats, scarves and gloves to anyone in York County who needs them.
With the help of younger brother Emerson and numerous volunteers, Coats of Friendship has handed out more than 4,000 coats so far this season. More than 2,000 went out on Saturday at their annual distribution day at Union Lutheran Church in York.
"We have a lot of people who come year after year,” Tristan said. “Some people bring in their coat they got the year before that might not fit or has a tear in it, and will take a new one.”
Tristan and Emerson are nearly halfway toward their goal of handing out 8,500 coats this season. That’s an increase of 1,500 over last year.
“That number is coats we hand out, not coats we collect,” Tristan said.
It started with YouTube
Tristan was 6 years old when he saw a YouTube video of a little boy on the streets in 5-degree weather. The boy had no jacket, and for two hours no one helped him. Another homeless person gave the boy a jacket and some money for essentials.
The video of the boy’s plight touched Tristan so much that he started a coat drive.
"When I was younger, people helped me because I was a kid,” Tristan said. “The older I get, the more respect I get for the nonprofit. We get more respect for the work that we do.”
Tristan and Emerson, along with three friends, collected 85 coats in 2015. They put them on trees and benches in York parks for anyone who needed them.
The next year the kids set a goal of collecting 250 coats. They distributed nearly three times that amount to LifePath Christian Ministries and three parks. Each coat came with a personalized note.
Over the years, drop-off locations were established throughout the county at schools, libraries and businesses. Individuals hold coat drives and service clubs donate funds to buy coats.
“At the drop-off location will be a gray tote that has our stickers on it,” Tristan said in a video for York’s Next Door program. “We’ll go in and grab the coats or the bags that people have left, put them in the car and bring them back to our house and put them in Units.”
Units Moving and Portable Storage donates a pod to the organization to store coats until they are needed. Red Barn Home Decors provides trucks to move large quantities of coats.
“Every donation counts”
Donation goals have increased each year to cover the growing need for coats.
“Right now we are completely out of coats,” Tristan said through the video. “We have coats set aside for the high school and elementary schools, but right now, we have no coats available.”
Tristan emphasized that every donation counts.
Those coats that haven’t seen the outside of your closet for the past four winters, or the one that is missing a button or two are fair game. Coats of Friendship will perform minor repairs before slotting the garment for distribution.
He said the organization isn’t set up to take monetary donations from individuals, but people can still help.
“If people have $5, they can go to a thrift store and buy a generic coat and donate that,” Tristan said.
That’s what Coats of Friendship does with monetary donations from organizations like the New Freedom Lions Club, which distributed $42,000 to local nonprofits this year.
Most of the time Tristan and Emerson can hit thrift stores to increase their inventory. But, sometimes they have clients who require something more specific.
“There is a man who wears a 6X who lives under a bridge in York, and he only wears trench coats,” Tristan said. “They develop mold and get dirty and torn. We have several people who need 4X, up to 8X, and they have to be ordered.”
Future in giving back
Tristan has spent more than half his young life helping people in York County.
They worked through the pandemic and when unseasonably warm temperatures kept people away from distribution day, forcing volunteers to shift direction to provide coats.
“We did a lot of private drop-offs, and hit the whole family,” Tristan said. “It was hard for some to understand about wearing masks, or thinking about the cold weather that would come in three days when it was 60 that day.”
Understanding in general could be a problem for some people who depend on the coats, so Tristan makes sure they have a translator at the church for the annual distribution day.
Spending so much time working with Coats of Friendship has put Tristan on a path for his future.
“I learned that I want to help people for the rest of my life,” he said. “I would love to do Coats of Friendship forever, but I realize I also have to make a living. I want to work with and for nonprofits to make people's lives better.”
He has two more years at Susquehannock, and then he is likely to head to Millersville University where he can study to become an adolescent therapist.
How to donate coats: Coats of Friendship’s Facebook page has a list of drop-off locations.
Shelly Stallsmith covers York-Adams high school sports for GameTimePA and the USAToday Network. Connect with her by email mstallsmith@ydr.com or on Twitter @ShelStallsmith.