By Gregory Childress

gchildress@heraldsun.com; 419-6645

Chapel Hill -- Blanket Orange County has exceeded its goal of collecting 300 blankets for Orange County residents, and set a record doing it.

The organizers said the 300-plus blankets are the most ever collected in the six years of the program. Before this year, the most blankets ever collected was 200.

"People really want to help," said Jan Bolick, director of Blanket Orange County. "This was just a little way for them to do that."

The blankets were collected for residents of the Interfaith Council's (IFC) Community House and Homestart, but citizens' generosity has made it possible for the organizers to expand distributions to other needy residents.

Blanket Orange County also received monetary donations that will allow them to purchase roughly 60 more blankets. Citizens gave cash donations of between $7, the estimated cost of a single blanket, and $500.

"Going over the goal put us in the position to not only fulfill the IFC's request for 300 blankets, but to also offer help to several young families in need, one of which recently lost all of their belongings in a fire," Bolick said.

Bolick said homeless people not living in town shelters will also benefit from the blanket drive.

"I've recently learned about entire camps of people who live outside and some of these blankets will be going to them," Bolick said.

The Blanket Orange County effort ran from Dec. 1-22.

Residents and their friends were invited to send cash donations or to drop off new or gently used blankets at The Chamber of Commerce, the YMCA, the YMCA at Meadowmont, the Orange County Visitors Bureau or the UNC Wellness Center.