The Buy Nothing Day Coat Exchange, Rhode Island’s largest statewide coat drive, returns to the Ocean State this year for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to ensure everyone who needs a coat this winter has one.

The event is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 26 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the south lawn of the Rhode Island State House in Providence and is open to all those who’d either like to donate an item or those in need of winter gear. The Coat Exchange is currently accepting donations of clean, gently-used coats, hats, gloves, mittens, scarves, sweatshirts, and other winter items at various drop-off locations throughout the state from now until the day of the event. All items are free of charge to those who need them most. Face masks are required in order to attend.

Collection and distribution sites are available in Cranston, East Greenwich, North Providence, Pawtucket, Providence, Riverside, Scituate, Wakefield, and Warwick. For more information, visit RICoatExchange.org. Donors are also welcome to host their own collection site and can do so by emailing ricoatdrive@gmail.com, reaching out on Facebook, or via the contact form at RICoatExchange.org.

This year’s Buy Nothing Day Coat Exchange comes at the right time with the pandemic affecting homelessness and jobless rates in Rhode Island. According to the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness, the state’s homelessness rate is expected to rise from the more than 1,100 reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2020, the fourth consecutive year in which the rate increased. Likewise, the state’s unemployment rate is 5.2%, as reported by the Department of Labor and Training in September, down significantly in recent months, but still higher than the 4.0% pre-pandemic rate reported in February of 2020.

Launched more than 20 years ago by Rhode Island activist Greg Gerritt, the Coat Exchange is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit and an extension of Buy Nothing Day, an international day of protest against consumerism that runs concurrent with Black Friday, the United States’ busiest shopping day of the year.