Need a winter coat? Bellevue teen has you covered

When it comes to sharing the holiday spirit, Ricky Teegarden of Bellevue has it all wrapped up.

The 14-year-old will give away more than 600 new and gently used coats to needy youth tonight at the Crossroads Community Center's annual holiday dinner. The event is expected to warm up hundreds of kids, from toddlers to teenagers.

This is the third year Teegarden has covered coatless youth through his Kids Care Coat Drive. The ever-growing giveaway is expected to pass the 1,000-coat mark tonight.

Any coat that is dirty gets laundered. Teegarden washes, dries and hangs up coats while he's doing his homework.

Now a freshman at Eastside Catholic High School, Teegarden traces the coat project back to seventh grade, when he volunteered at Teen Closet, a clothing bank for middle- and high-school students run by Bellevue's Youth Link program. He saw that coats, jackets and other warm outerwear were the most-requested items. While helping plan the Chinook Middle School annual canned-food drive in 2004, he suggested collecting coats, too. The drive brought in 350 coats.

"They went like that!" he said. "We went out and bought five more coats out of our own pockets, but it wasn't enough."

The next year he expanded the drive, picking up coats from several elementary schools' lost-and-found collections.

This year the project grew again. Eastside Catholic, Bellevue High School, International School and Tyee Middle School joined the drive. Teegarden and other Youth Link volunteers set up donation boxes at the YMCA in Bellevue, Crossroads shopping center and at Microsoft's Redmond campus. His younger brother's third-grade class at Woodridge Elementary collected coats. A Newcastle woman heard about the program and collected another 30 coats. Lee Insurance Services in Kirkland donated new socks and sweatshirts.

The recipient pool has grown, too.

Jackets and other items have been set aside for The Landing, a center for homeless youth ages 18-25 run by Friends of Youth and the YMCA. Some will go to single young mothers through Catholic Community Services.

Teegarden says he coordinates the project each year to help the needy, but he's also hoping it will let other teens know there's a need in their community.

"Even though we're teenagers, we can help," he said.

Many do. Other Youth Link volunteers helped collect and sort the coats and will help distribute them tonight.

"Ricky has been able to galvanize young people and older people to work together to meet a significant need in the community," said Helena Stephens, Bellevue's teen and youth services director. "There will be a lot of warm children because of Ricky."

Teegarden's parents have also gotten involved, providing transportation and helping to haul the coats.

"My mother calls herself my secretary," Teegarden said. "She gets the phone calls when I'm at school, and she's the one who found clothing racks on Craigslist."

But it was Ricky Teegarden who requested and received free use of a storage unit at Factoria Security Self Storage.

"We needed it," he said. "The project outgrew our living room."

The best part of the project, he said, is giving the coats away.

"Either last year or two years ago, a little kid found a snowsuit his size," Teegarden said. "He was jumping up and down because it meant he could go to his Cub Scout snow camp. His mother was crying because she was so happy."

Teegarden hopes the Kids Care Coat Drive eventually will stock Teen Closet with enough coats to clothe needy families year-round.

Sherry Grindeland: 206-515-5633 or sgrindeland@seattletimes.com