Posted at: 10/20/2009 7:23 PM
By: Dan Conradt

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More Winter Coats

(ABC 6 NEWS) -- If you haven't pulled your winter coat out of the back of the closet yet, you will soon.

But this year more than ever, the need for winter coats is up.

Two-month-old Rana doesn't know it yet, but grandma just bought her a new coat

"One out of a million, and I just got that for like a dollar 99," says Doreen Nelson.

And if grandma Doreen Nelson had been a few minutes later, it might not have been there.

"They’re going out faster than they're coming in right now," says William Clennon, from the Austin Salvation Army Thrift Store.

On the eve of a Minnesota winter, organizations like the United Way and the Salvation Army say good, inexpensive coats are in short supply.

By the end of the day, this rack of children's coats could be empty, and not all of them will leave her in a bag.

"Someone will come in, purchase a coat for three, four dollars and they'll put it on and wear it out the door," Clennon says.

"Majority of my clothing is coming from here, with my children and grandchildren," says Nelson.

Doreen Nelson is a Salvation Army regular.

"A snow suit like this in a store would be very expensive, here they're selling it for like 3-99," Nelson says.

And with three children and seven grandchildren on her shopping list, that's important.

"I just can't afford to go to the store and buy it new.  They outgrow it so fast," she says.

This is the fourth year of the Mower County United Way's children's coat drive.

"We received 93 usable donations," says Mandi Lighthizer-Schmidt.

 ... And donations haven't kept pace with demand.

"We have 401 children who are signed-up to receive a coat this year," she says.

"I think it's mostly people that have lost their jobs recently because of the economy or downsizing.  Potentially we could get into a situation where people that really need them aren't going to have them available," says Clennon.

The Mower County United Way hopes three thousand dollars in cash donations will help prevent that.

"We use those cash donations them to supplement where we don't receive outerwear," says Lighthizer-Schmidt.

And by next winter, little Rana's new coat might be back at the Salvation Army thrift store and become someone else's one-in-a-million find.

"A lot of the stuff that's probably in here I’ve probably had once or twice before for one of my kids, and then the grandchildren also," Nelson says.

The Mower County United Way has stopped taking donations of coats, but is taking cash donations for the coat fund through the end of this week.

Salvation Army offices around the area say they can always use donations of good used coats at this time of year.