Columnist Susan Snyder: Idea for donations takes flight

Thursday, March 24, 2005 | 8:09 a.m.

Members of McCarran International Airport's maintenance staff have given homeless people the shirts off their backs.

Well, more accurately, the jackets. The Clark County Aviation Department crews are getting new uniforms, so they donated to Catholic Charities 175 winter jackets that matched their old duds.

Daily uniforms are rented. But McCarran buys the jackets, worth about $100 each, Bert Frattini, McCarran facilities engineer, said.

In the past, they just pitched them.

"This time, we thought we'd do something nice with them," he said.

Unifirst, the airport's uniform company, donated cleaning and removed the McCarran logos. Then Frattini's workers folded and bagged the fleece-lined jackets, loaded them onto a truck Tuesday and drove them to Catholic Charities.

It's the first time McCarran employees have donated retired uniforms. But they regularly donate unclaimed items from the airport's lost-and-found department, said Debbie Millett, Clark County Aviation Department spokeswoman.

What kind of stuff do people leave behind?

"Anything from wearing apparel to pillows, sunglasses, hats, glasses cases, keys," Millett said. "People walk off without items you would think they would never forget. People have left (false) teeth."

Frattini said there is a whole bin of cell phones -- "a gazillion," I think he said.

"People leave baby carriers," Millett added. "But they've never left a baby yet. So maybe they just jettisoned (the carriers) because they're heavy."

Sharon Mann said the jackets will be distributed to those enrolled in the agency's resident work program, which serves about 300 men who live dormitory-style until they can find work and save enough money to get a place of their own.

"We put them back to work. They stay for two months or two years. It's decided case by case," Mann said. "When you receive a donation like this, well, it's wonderful. A lot of these guys come to us with nothing."

In addition to the 300 men in the resident work program at any one time, Catholic Charities feeds men, women and children living on the streets, along with women and children from Shade Tree shelter.

It amounts to about 2,000 people each day, Mann said. Many of those who obtain Catholic Charities' meals at 10:30 a.m. daily are among those who used to eat their evening meals at the Las Vegas Rescue Mission that recently closed its doors. The mission was closed to drive away the 100 or more people who had set up a makeshift camp behind the building.

But people still need to eat somewhere. And when it's cold, they need warm jackets.

"Most of (the jackets) look like brand new. The weather is still kind of chilly, so it's perfect," Mann said. "It's really great. We're thrilled."

Tuesday morning Frattini stood near the loading docks on the ground floor of McCarran's parking garage and watched four of his co-workers roll the carts of bagged jackets onto an aviation agency delivery truck.

"I've been by there a few times and seen people standing out there in line for food," he said of Catholic Charities' Commerce Street complex.

"People come to Las Vegas, they make a wrong move, and they end up in that situation," he said. "It's sad."