Coats for kids fundraiser

The 31st annual Coats for Kids campaign is now underway in Las Cruces, with a goal of providing 2,000 or more new coats to children in need in 2025.

Coats for Kids is sponsored by the nonprofit Love Las Cruces, along with D2 Designs, Comet Cleaners and Laundry and the Knights of Columbus.

New this year is a cookie dough fundraiser, said Love Las Cruces President Alycia Jameson, who is the owner of D2 Designs and the Coats for Kids program director. Six different types of cookie dough are available for $25 to $27 each, including bakery-style sugar butter cookies, Hershey’s chocolate chunk delights, peanut butter bliss gourmet cookies, Quaker oatmeal raisin classic cookies, M&M perfection cookies and Signature white chocolate macadamia cookies.

“They come shipped with ice to your door,” Jameson said.

Courtesy of Coats for Kids

All the money raised through cookie-dough sales will go to buy new coats in this year’s campaign, she said. The cookie dough fundraiser ends Sunday, Sept. 21, World Gratitude Day.

“If cookie dough isn’t your thing, we ask that you make a donation ahead of World Gratitude Day, as a reminder to be thankful, and generous to the kids in need in our community,” Jameson said.

Also new this year, you won’t see Coats for Kids coat collection boxes around town. That’s because the campaign is not accepting gently used coats during its 2025 campaign.

“We’re focusing entirely on monetary donations, which will allow us to purchase new, high-quality coats for children in need,” Jameson said. “A $20 donation buys a new coat for a local child.”

“The goal for this year’s campaign is to distribute as many coats as we can get funded, an equal number of coats to each Las Cruces elementary school,” Jameson said.

The campaign is working with social workers and counselors from Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS) to ensure children most in need receive warm coats before cold weather begins.

“We have distributed 3,000 coats annually for the past several years but this year we do not have the same funding and are doing our best to continue the program under our new nonprofit,” Jameson said. “To serve LCPS elementary students in need alone would be approximately 2,200 kids and we are working toward that goal. When we reach that goal, we will look at serving middle school and high school students in need (which is a few hundred more students), if that is possible. As we are able to serve students in need in Las Cruces, we can begin to help our nearby communities of Gadsden and Hatch. Donors can also directly support the Gadsden independent School District Coats for Kids fundraiser from our website,” she said.

Donations are requested before the end of September, Jameson said.

“We will purchase this year’s coats by Sept. 30 to distribute to our preregistered elementary kids by the week before Thanksgiving,” she said.

A second order before the end of the year is possible, she said, depending on donations received.

“We know it’s hard to think about cold winter weather when it is so hot outside during the year, but we need to be prepared for when the cold does arrive,” Jameson said. “We will continue to fundraise as much as possible throughout the year in 2026.”

Since Coats for Kids began in 1995, it has provided nearly 75,000 coats to children in need.

To buy cookie dough, call Jameson at 575-621-4162.

To make a donation to Coats for Kids of Las Cruces, visit lascrucescoatsforkids.com/donate and facebook.com/lascrucescoatsforkids. You can hand-deliver a donation to one these three Comet Cleaners locations: 2497 N. Main St., 2001 E. Lohman Ave. and 555 Utah Ave., or to D2 Designs, 101 Perkins St., suite B. Or, mail a donation check to D2 Designs, 101 Perkins Drive, Suite B, Las Cruces, N.M. 88005.