For Minneapolis, Minnesota based Pilgrim Dry Cleaners Inc., 2016 marked the most successful year for community drives. Since 1986, Pilgrim Cleaners has been helping people in need in their local community. Founder, Don Rosen, started the first community drive when a woman came in to his store asking if he had extra coats that he could give her. Don searched through his old inventory and was able to provide the woman with a coat for her son, which sparked the creation of the annual Coats For Kids drive.
The need in the community for warm clothing during the harsh Minnesota winter months continues to expand, so Pilgrim Cleaners continues to provide help for those in need each year. Their goal each year is to collect and clean 10,000 coats for families in the local community. In the past few years it has been hard for to reach this goal; however, this year marked the most successful drive in recent years with a total collection of 9,500 children and adult coats. After the coats were collected and cleaned, Pilgrim Dry Cleaners distributed the coats to local charities.
In addition to the success with the Coats For Kids drive this year, they also had record years for their other community drives as well. In October they teamed up with local news channel – Fox 9 – to collect, clean and distribute 1,100 Halloween costumes for kids. During the month of July Pilgrim Dry Cleaners also had a Scouting For Uniforms drive, which collected, cleaned and distributed 380 Boy Scout uniforms. Right now they are working to clear out old inventory to donate to Suits for Soldiers.
The community drives not only help those in need in the local community, but they also make everyone at the company feel good! Pilgrim Cleaners says they are grateful for the success this year and extremely proud of everyone who was involved.
