Staff photo / Andy Gray
Tony Villanueva, president of Live Like Lindsey Inc., left, and Robyn Mediate, store manager for Walmart in Liberty, stand in front of one of the racks of coats that area Walmart and Sam’s Club stores have donated to the organization.

GIRARD — Dozens of children will have a warmer winter with the help of the latest donation to Live Like Lindsey Inc.

The organization, which distributes winter coats to children in need, received 50 new coats on Friday that were collected and donated by area Walmart and Sam’s Club stores.

“It’s a great partnership with Walmart,” said Tony Villanueva, president of Live Like Lindsey. “We’re so happy to have a partnership with them. Any donation we get goes to our communities — children in need, organizations that deal with children, misplaced children, women and children that are in distress from domestic situations, we provide coats for them as well.”

Robyn Mediate, store manager at Walmart in Liberty said, “Tony approached me last year when we met at a fundraiser for another organization, and I knew that Walmart had to be a part of this.”

Friday’s delivery was the latest of several donations the stores have made to the organization. The group targets this time of year for its coat drives because stores are marking down winter items to make room for more merchandise, and the funds the nonprofit group raises throughout the year will go further. And the snow outside its storefront at 1 N. Market St. was a sign the need isn’t over for this winter.

Villanueva’s wife, Lindsey Villanueva, started an annual coat drive in 2018 that distributed winter coats to children in need through children’s services in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.

Following her death in 2021 after a brain aneurysm, her family and friends created the non-profit organization Live Like Lindsey Inc. to continue her mission.

The last year Lindsey was alive, she distributed about 450 coats. Her husband said they are approaching 950 coats distributed this winter to children in Trumbull, Mahoning, Columbiana and Portage counties. He believes the increase is driven by increasing awareness of the organization, not an increasing need.

“The need has always been there,” he said.

Lindsey Villanueva started collecting new coats with the tag still on because the children’s services organizations didn’t want to run the risk of the possible contaminants on used clothing (such as bed bugs or lice) infecting the rest of their inventories.

Live Like Lindsey continues that policy for that reason, but also because, “Lindsey’s motto was, “Well, every child deserves a new coat,” Tony Villanueva said.