Hundreds of Las Vegas children get free coats for upcoming colder weather

LAS VEGAS ( KLAS ) — Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary students in east Las Vegas received free jackets on Wednesday to prepare for the upcoming colder weather.

It was a year in the making for these nearly 400 students to get these coats after the school’s student success advocate, Dione Eagles, noticed many students did not have enough warm clothes during the winter last year.

“When I asked them, ‘Why do you have on your mother’s coat?’ They said, ‘Well, we needed a coat, and she gave it to us.’ I said next year, not on my watch,” Eagles said.

After that, Eagles went to work and reached out. A nonprofit called Operation Warm answered the call along with help from TJ Maxx.

“This is the first event of its kind on the West Coast,” explained Principal Douglas Taylor at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, which is near Nellis Air Force Base in the northeast valley.

More than 40 volunteers from TJ Maxx handed about 400 coats to students at the school along with some goodies from TJ Maxx. “You can just see the smile on their face and how much it touches them, but I think it also touches us as well,” said Kurt Polster, general manager of TJ Maxx’s Las Vegas distribution center.

The coats are brand new from Operation Warm and include a hood and fleece-lined interior. This coat giveaway is part of several incentives the school does to promote perfect attendance and positive behavior, as well as academics.

MLK Elementary is a Title I school with a population of about 360 students. The school has a 100% free, and reduced lunch rate, indicating that all students come from low-income households.

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