St. Vincent de Paul | Louisville

Girl and Her Family Collect for the Needy

By Joseph Lord, The Courier-Journal

Makenzie Smith, 12, collects donated coats for people in need because seeing them in the new coats “warms her heart.”

For Vicki Daugherty, 48, of Old Louisville, Makenzie’s efforts mean a more literal warmth.

The brown leather coat and a brown jacket Daugherty picked out — items she couldn’t otherwise afford — mean keeping snug in the winter.

“I think this is nice,” Daugherty said.

Makenzie, a seventh-grader at Borden (Ind.) Junior-Senior High School, and members of her family distributed coats Tuesday to families in need, the homeless and others.

Called Makenzie’s Coat Closet, the girl’s efforts led to collecting approximately 2,600 coats this year in Kentucky and Indiana, she said.

Makenzie’s Coat Closet teamed with the charitable group the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to hand out the coats at the Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church on East Kentucky Street, where they set up in a gymnasium. Through the day, about 1,200 people walked into the gym and perused the coats, picking the ones they liked.

St. Vincent de Paul spokeswoman Linda Romine said the group teams with Makenzie’s Coat Closet because it fits the charity’s mission to aid the needy and homeless.

This was Makenzie’s sixth year collecting coats and distributing them to people in need, she said.

She keeps doing it every year for “the feeling of how happy everybody is when they get a coat.”