More than 100 children in the Hilliard City School District will be a little warmer when they trudge to school this winter, thanks to a new Hilliard nonprofit organization.

In the last several months, Serving Our Neighbors Ministries (SONM) has bought about 100 winter coats for children, along with collecting more than 450 sets of winter hats and gloves, according to director Kim Emch.

"We've been collecting donations and purchasing winter coats for some of the children at Bayside Commons and Countryview West, the two largest apartment complexes in the Hilliard school district for low-income families," Emch said. "We've also been fortunate enough to purchase coats for every student at a school in the hilltop, Highland Elementary School."

Emch said SONM was incorporated on March 3, growing out of the Upper Arlington Lutheran Church at Mill Run.

"We're focused on mobilizing the community to partner with families in poverty in Hilliard, and offer assistance," Emch said. "We connect families that are struggling with resources that can help."

For several months, SONM has been working with area businesses and the faith community to come up with the funds to buy the coats, Emch said.

"We haven't been asking for donated coats but have been collecting financial donations - we have found such amazing post-sale pricing for groups like ours, that we felt it was better stewardship of the money than to have people go out to stores and buy coats to be donated."

Since its incorporation in the spring, SONM has also taken over the Hilliard free summer lunch program, which has been organized by the UALC Church for the past three years. The program offers free lunches in the summer months to students who receive free and reduced-cost lunches during the school year, Emch said.

"We also provide programming around the lunch, because kids are kids, they're more likely to come to something if it's fun," she said. "Over the course of the last three summers we've served over 10,000 lunches, and we'll start again next summer when school lets out."

While SONM recently finished its winter coat buying program, the non-profit is getting ready for other winter services, Emch said.

"We are working on tutoring for children this winter. We're partnering with the English language class for adults at Hilliard United Methodist, in tutoring the children of those parents," she said. "We're also looking at other tutoring partnerships, for those who need some help with basic math and basic reading."

Emch said SONM could use some energetic and positive-minded Hilliard residents to help out with the tutoring program.

"We would love more volunteers," she said. "We've just put together a parent advisory team and we're welcoming the parents that are interested to come and see how (the summer lunch program) works, and we could really just use some more volunteers."

Emch said anyone interested in volunteering their time to SONM can contact her at 614-451-3736 ex. 7063, or by e-mail at kemch@ualc.org.

lrice@thisweeknews.com