Top Notch Cleaners, 201 W. Eighth St., and Master Cleaners, 200 W. Eighth St. and 2403 Vine, are two local businesses that are also competitors. Both of these businesses provide the citizens of Hays with the service of dry cleaning. However the two businesses come together each year for some charitable work by collecting used coats and then distributing them to anyone in need and this year they came together to distribute 1,300 coats to members of the Hays community.
Amy Mermis-Smith and her father, Norman Mermis, are the owners of Top Notch Cleaners and founders of the annual coat drive. They said they started the coat drive 17 years ago in order to provide coats to children who might not be able to have a correct size coat, or any coat at all, for the winter. They said they soon realized that not just children were in need, but also adults.
“When it started out, it was mainly for the kids,” Mermis-Smith said. “And then very quickly we realized there are a lot of adults that need coats too. So we don’t just focus on the kids . . . There are never enough of the children’s coats, but any coats at all are appreciated.”
Master Cleaners, owned by Ryan Gottschalk, has been part of the coat drive for the last 16 years. With so much success, the need to split the workload of collecting and cleaning the coats was a welcomed idea.
Both businesses accept coats all year long, but the owners said the three-week span before the actual drive are when most of the coats to come in. People have many options on how to donate as well.
“We collect them through the schools,” Mermis-Smith said. “We have boxes in all of USD 489 and also at both McDonald’s restaurants. Anyone can donate them at those place or they can drop them off at either cleaners. We usually collect for about three weeks. Then we take one week that we clean them and repair them and then put them out for distribution.”
One thing that separates this coat drive from other used clothing drives is that anyone who needs a coat can get a coat. For some drives, the recipient must meet a certain income requirement, but not for these coats.
“There are no guidelines because everyone has hard times every once in a while. You don’t have to talk to anybody, there’s no pressure, and no one pays attention to who is out there so it’s totally anonymous. It just seems to work better that way,” Mermis-Smith said.
With the economy right now, everyone is watching his or her nickels and dimes trying to save for other necessities. Even college students come and get in on the action because it’s one less thing they need to worry about for the winter. Mermis-Smith chuckles at the coats that some of the college students decide to take.
“Always the goofiest looking coats that we have out there are what the college kids get,” Mermis-Smith said. “Especially since it is close to Halloween, because I think some of them come and look for parts of a costume.”
For the coats that are not taken on the day of the coat drive, the businesses still find them a home.
“Anything that is left over, we try to give them to businesses that will give them away and not sell them,” Mermis-Smith said. “I used to donate them to the Community Assistance Center. But we have such an awesome community, they get so many donations, they don’t really need our coat drive ones. The last couple years, both Master’s and us have donated them to St. Nicholas Church, which takes care of an Indian reservation.”
The cleaners have also donated the leftovers to a food bank in Russell and to Rooks County in the past years. Both stores agreed that this is a great way to support the local communities.
With so many donations and so many of the coats being distributed, the two businesses plan to keep doing the drive annually.
“We just want to get out whatever we can, and we are very happy to see when we have a good turnout . . . I think we are all very happy to have a community that supports us as well as they do, to get this back out to the people,” Mermis-Smith said.