More than 2,200 coats for homeless people and refugees

Piles of coats and other winter clothes are waiting here for people who are less fortunate. For the fifth year, Foundation Together for Eindhoven has collected warm coats with the action "give a coat and warm a heart.

"Children with shoes that are too small and without appropriate, warm clothes. That also happens in this city. There are Eindhoven families living below the poverty line," begins Marbritta van Boldrik of Samen voor Eindhoven. "We want everyone in Eindhoven to be winter-proof. Last time we tapped the 2000 coats. Now we are already on the 2200."

Kamal Charrha is busy searching among the piles of coats. He fled from Morocco; he has been living in the Netherlands for three months. He found a dark blue coat. "I'm extremely happy with all the people who helped," he says, beaming. "Now everyone has a warm coat. That's nice. Especially now that it's going to get colder and colder. If such initiatives didn't exist people would be out in the cold because they couldn't afford it."

Segen Andom from Eritrea was also successful. "I found three coats. They are very good, nice, sturdy coats. Sometimes I also buy my own clothes, but I don't have that many. So I'm really happy with these coats."

The 2,200 coats were collected from several large organizations in Eindhoven, such as DELA and the High Tech Campus. In addition to allowing people to pick their own clothes, they will also be distributed to nine charities in Eindhoven: clothing bank, Dress for Success, Experience that State, Inloophuis 't Hemeltje, Salvation Army, NEOS, GGzE and clothing exchange studio #Awesome.

Heart for coffee

This year, hearts will also be pinned on jackets. The hearts are worth two free cups of coffee or tea at a number of Eindhoven coffee shops. The Awesome Foundation from Tongelre makes the hearts and the Poverty Fund sponsors it. "We want to literally give people something extra warm with this gesture," says Van Boldrik. "For many people it's natural to just grab a coffee at a coffee shop, but for these people it's difficult. That's why we now have these little hearts. Then they can get a coffee at one and that can already be an outing. Even if we make a handful of people happy, this is already successful."