From Luke 3:10: The crowds asked him (John the Baptist), “What then should we do?” Luke 3:11 continues: John replied, “Whoever has two tunics should share with him who has none …”

Our community demonstrated this Word of God during our recent Copper Country Angel Mission Coat the Copper Country distributions at the end of October at The Salvation Army & beginning of November at the Calumet Theatre. Our main goal was to ensure all children K-12 had their necessary winter wear and with the help of the CCISD and our local school districts, our kids were served first.

CCAM continues to be blessed in collaborating with The Salvation Army for the 2nd year allowing us to expand our outreach from the Keweenaw to the Baraga/L’Anse area and our 1st year with Michigan Tech’s Closet. We served over 400 individuals with 2 of the 3 needed items: boots, jackets, snowpants, and all were able to choose a hat and gloves/mittens during those 2 weekends. Our Store volunteers state we have given away at least 250 more jackets, boots, and snow pants and hundreds of scarves, hats, mittens and gloves since. We were able to provide a carload of winter wear to the Baraga/L’Anse area.

Most of our local churches, Auto Pro-Glass & Tire, Walmart (Houghton), Incredible Banks of Calumet & Houghton, Circle K & 41 Lumber, Calumet, Eagle Harbor Township, and the Calumet Colosseum let us place collection boxes for gently used winter wear; along with hundreds of community members bringing theirs to our Store. Local businesses’ staff including Breakwater Federal Credit Union, collected much needed winter wear. Our distributions wouldn’t have been successful without our community’s support of new and gently used items for those that wouldn’t have had adequate winter clothing. We thank all of you! The support of our local media coverage was significant to our success.

We thank Snyder’s Drug for their donation of hats & gloves, Harter’s Party Store for their donation of boots, Calumet’s Hats for Hope Initiative, MI for 2 large donations of homemade hats and mittens, and Erickson Feed, Seed and Pet Supply for their donation of boots and winter gloves. We appreciate your generosity and are grateful for your continued support!

We appreciate our local businesses for allowing collection cans on their counters to purchase over $2,000 of much needed items.

Thank you to our local businesses that fed our hardworking volunteers during our distributions: Jim’s Pizza, Circle K, Figaros of Calumet, Pat’s Foods, Hancock & Pepsi Bottling & Domino’s Houghton. We appreciated the delicious snacks and pizzas.

This month we received word from Keweenaw Community Foundation that we were awarded $1,500 to purchase winterwear for next season, but since our need is great this winter we received the check in December along with an additional private donor donation through KCF of $600.

To Our Volunteers: Thank you for your time, thank you for your effort, but mostly thank you for helping those less fortunate than yourself. Volunteering is an extraordinary gift that not everyone can give. You are a blessing to our community.

Copper Country Angel Mission CtCC and the recipients of the winter gear have been blessed through the generosity of our entire community. Again, thank you for your support!

Renee Tuoriniemi

Lead Volunteer

Coat the Copper Country