Coats for Christmas: A WMRN Community Tradition

A Local Tradition, an Unresolved Beginning

Coats for Christmas reflects a longstanding form of community broadcasting: using a familiar local signal to invite public participation in a practical service effort. WMRN encouraged listeners to give usable winter outerwear; community partners helped prepare those donations for distribution to people in need in Marion and Upper Sandusky.

An archived WMRN-AM 1490 promotion is presently described as circa 1990s. That makes it an early surviving piece of campaign documentation, but the recording is not conclusive proof of an exact year or of the campaign’s first season. Corporate reporting later described the campaign as an annual event by 2016 and 2017. The Archive is continuing to investigate its beginnings. [2016 report] [2017 report]

Hear the Coats for Christmas Promo

This preserved promotional announcement demonstrates how WMRN presented Coats for Christmas to its radio audience. Unlike a retrospective written account, an original station recording preserves period delivery, language, pacing, and production style.

Archival dating note: The broadcast catalog also presents a numeric year of 1990 for this item, while the descriptive title says circa 1990s. The decade-level designation is used here until independent evidence supports a more precise date. A verified transcription is not yet available. [Archive recording]

The Campaign Through the Years

These are documented milestones, not a claim that all intervening years have been researched or that the campaign operated without interruption.

1. Circa 1990s — Broadcast-era evidence. A WMRN-AM Coats for Christmas promotion survives in the Archive; its exact airdate is unknown. [Recording]
2. 2016 — Annual community collection. iHeartMedia’s annual impact report identifies WMRN-AM 1490’s Coats for Christmas campaign and a December 12 event, with gently used coats deposited at marked collection locations. [Report]
3. 2017 — Marion and Upper Sandusky distribution. The December 9 campaign was reported as an annual WMRN-AM event. Donations were professionally cleaned and distributed free through locations in Marion and Upper Sandusky. [Report]
4. 2019 — A major reported collection year. iHeartMedia reported that more than 10,000 coats were collected over October and November, with Kimmel Cleaners providing cleaning before distribution. [Report]
5. 2021 — Community service continues. The iHeartMedia annual report attributed a campaign gathering approximately 2,000 coats to Buckeye Country 94.3. [Report]
6. 2022 — Detailed logistics are preserved. Approximately 2,000 coats were reported collected; WMRN also published a breakdown of collection sites, cleaning, donated storage, pickup, and distribution arrangements. Free distribution was organized in Marion and Upper Sandusky. [Report] [Station notice]
7. 2023 — A credit union documents its collection role. Pillar Credit Union promoted winter-clothing collection from October 31 to November 22 ahead of a December 9 distribution. [Partner notice]
8. 2024 — Broadcast and corporate documentation. iHeartMedia again documented the campaign; a surviving October 25 WMRN football broadcast contains a contemporary Coats for Christmas announcement. [Report] [Broadcast]
9. 2025 — A documented public distribution. WMRN announced a November 22 distribution at Marion St. Mary’s School, from 9 a.m. to noon while supplies lasted. [Station announcement]

From a Listener’s Closet to a Neighbor’s Coat

Surviving campaign descriptions document a chain of contributions. Listeners brought new or gently used winter coats to participating collection sites. Donated outerwear was then gathered, professionally cleaned, transported or stored as needed, and made available without charge at community distribution locations.

By 2022, the operation had become a detailed collaboration. The station’s announcement credited Kimmel Cleaners with donating cleaning labor and services, Wyandot Motor Sales with storage trailers, and the Marion and Wyandot County Boards of Developmental Disabilities with coat pickup and delivery. Goodwill in Marion and St. Peter’s School in Upper Sandusky provided distribution facilities, while the boards, United Way, Goodwill and iHeartMedia Marion were named among volunteer partners. [2022 station notice]

This division of labor is part of the story: broadcasting supplied reach, but the campaign depended on many organizations undertaking different practical tasks.

The Businesses and Organizations Behind the Campaign

Kimmel Corporation / Kimmel Cleaners. The cleaning partner is repeatedly named in WMRN and iHeartMedia materials. Kimmel’s company history describes a coat-drive partnership with an area radio station involving the collection, cleaning and distribution of approximately 5,000–8,000 coats per year. That figure is the company’s general description; it should not be applied to every individually documented year. [Kimmel history]

Collection partners. The 2022 station notice named Goodwill, Edgefield Animal Care Center, Penn Station East Coast Subs, Kimmel locations, Jay DePolo & Associates, Pillar Credit Union, Premier Bank, Cool Kids ReSale, Crawford Orthodontics, Buckeye Ridge Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Quest Federal Credit Union, St. Peter’s School, and iHeartMedia’s Marion studios, among others. This is a historical 2022 list, not an up-to-date directory of donation sites. [2022 notice]

Community volunteers and host sites. Goodwill, United Way, the county developmental-disabilities boards and participating schools helped make the difference between receiving clothing and getting it into people’s hands. Their exact roles varied by year; further firsthand interviews may clarify how the work was organized. [2022 notice]

What the Reported Numbers Tell Us

In its 2019 annual impact report, iHeartMedia stated that Coats for Christmas collected more than 10,000 coats for the Marion community during that campaign’s October–November collection period. Its 2021 and 2022 reporting separately described approximately 2,000 coats for each of those years. [2019] [2021] [2022]

• 2019: More than 10,000 coats — reported count.
• 2021: Approximately 2,000 coats — reported estimate.
• 2022: Approximately 2,000 coats — reported estimate.

These figures should not be treated as an audited cumulative history. They represent selected years with available reporting, and variations in how different organizations counted donations may affect comparisons. A total number of coats, distribution recipients, or years of uninterrupted operation has not yet been established.

Announcements, Graphics, and a Later On-Air Reference

Besides the earlier audio promo, the campaign left a documentary trail in printed and digital media: corporate impact-report entries, station distribution notices, collection-site announcements and community partner artwork. These are valuable primary sources even when original station files do not survive.

• View the 2022 Coats for Christmas partner graphic — an externally published image documenting participating organizations. Image remains hosted by its originating organization.
• Read Pillar Credit Union’s 2023 campaign notice — a contemporary local partner record.
• Open WMRN’s October 25, 2024 football broadcast — a campaign advertisement is heard at approximately 1:20:52; the Archive has not represented this as a separately accessioned recording.

Third-party photographs, audio and artworks remain credited to their source publishers. Their inclusion as links does not imply that the Archive owns reproduction rights.

WMRN-AM and Buckeye Country 94.3

Corporate reports attributed Coats for Christmas to 1490 WMRN-AM in 2016, 2017 and 2019. Later reports also credited Buckeye Country 94.3, the Marion sister-station operation, including in 2021 and 2022. These shifts in report attribution are worth preserving: they show how a recognizable community campaign was promoted across radio brands associated with the Marion market. [2017] [2019] [2022]

It would be misleading to assume that one station alone organized every aspect of every year’s campaign. The surviving record instead points to the wider radio operation and its network of community partners.

What Is Known About 2026?

Research status, October 18, 2026: The Archive has not verified a public announcement for a 2026 WMRN Coats for Christmas campaign. That absence does not establish that the campaign has been discontinued. Confirmation from current station management and longstanding partners is being sought.

This historical exhibit is not a live donation announcement. Visitors should consult current official station and partner notices for active campaign arrangements, donation locations, hours and eligibility rules.

Open Questions and Historical Method

The campaign’s origins deserve further documentation. Questions include its founding year, who first proposed and coordinated it, the beginning of Kimmel’s involvement, the roles of successive station personalities, the extent of early newspaper and broadcast coverage, and how its collection and distribution methods changed over time.

The Archive distinguishes contemporary documentary records from later recollections, and precise dates from approximate datings. A campaign mentioned in a particular year does not prove that was the first year. Similarly, a surviving c. 1990s recording cannot yet be assigned an exact year based solely on how it sounds.

Oral histories from former WMRN personnel, Kimmel employees, partner organizations, volunteers and participating listeners could substantially enrich the record. Sources will be credited and conflicting claims evaluated before being treated as established facts.

Sources and Further Reading

The following primary and institutional sources form the present research base. Links open the original published documents; some PDF reports are lengthy, and the campaign appears within the local-station highlights.

1. WMRN Radio History Archive, Recorded Broadcast Archive: Coats for Christmas Community Campaign Promo (c. 1990s, provisional date).
2. iHeartMedia, 2016 Impact Report, Marion / Coats for Christmas entry.
3. iHeartMedia, 2017 Impact Report, Marion / WMRN-AM 1490 entry.
4. iHeartMedia, 2019 Impact Report, Coats for Christmas, printed page 258.
5. iHeartMedia, 2021 Annual Report, Marion / Coats for Christmas entry.
6. iHeartMedia, 2022 Annual Impact Report, printed pages 335–336.
7. 1490 WMRN, 2022 campaign collection and distribution notice.
8. Pillar Credit Union, 2023 Coats for Christmas community event notice.
9. iHeartMedia, 2024 Impact Report, Marion / Coats for Christmas entry.
10. WMRN, Shelby at Pleasant football broadcast, October 25, 2024 (campaign ad at approximately 1:20:52).
11. 1490 WMRN, 2025 Coats for Christmas Campaign announcement.
12. Kimmel Corporation, company history and community partnership description.

Editorial standard: Dates, figures and named roles are attributed to their sources. Where the evidence is incomplete, uncertainty is identified explicitly. Last historical review: October 18, 2026.

Help Preserve the Coats for Christmas Story

Do you remember donating or receiving a coat, hearing the appeals on WMRN, helping at a collection box, cleaning coats, or staffing distribution? Have a period photograph, flyer, station script, recording, newspaper clipping or other piece of Coats for Christmas history?

The WMRN Radio History Archive welcomes historical leads, materials and firsthand recollections. You do not necessarily need to donate an original item: photographs and scans may help document the story while originals remain with their owners.

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The WMRN Radio History Archive is an independent historical preservation project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the current or former owners of WMRN. This page documents Coats for Christmas; it does not claim that the Archive operates the campaign.