On a Mission to End Hunger & Clothing Insecurities

In 2005, the Community service project of providing warm coats to children was started in a Barton College, Wilson, North Carolina classroom. The co-founder of Friends of Kindness Inc. would drive by a Church Elementary School on her way to Barton College and see children playing outside without a coat on in the middle of winter. Baffled as to how children could not have a coat, she spoke with colleagues, approached her students, and everyone agreed that creating a 'Coats for Kids' Community Service Project would help eliminate clothing insecurities and provide warmth.

Now having a plan for the community service project, she presented it to the Barton College administration and sort out their approval to get started. The administration agreed to the importance of the idea, granted approval, and the community service project was considered an active classroom project. Since the interception of the project in 2005, hundreds and thousands of brand-new coats have been given to needy Children and Adults in North Carolina, Effingham, Illinois, other communities

After the start of the coat distribution in 2005, came filling children's back packs with essential food for weekends in Wilson, providing bags of groceries during Holidays and School breaks, giving new shoes from New Balance to children, and hosting yearly Wilson Community Thanksgiving and Christmas meals for over 500 children, families, senior citizens, and military veterans.

After 16 years of providing food and clothing essentials, Friends of Kindness Inc.became a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in 2021. As a non-profit organization, the Friends of Kindness team is now able to reach wider audiences with much needed daily essentials and provide a tax-deduction to benefactors and donors. This assistance from our donors and benefactors of going beyond ordinary kindness, makes a difference to that one child, one family, one individual at a time.