Staff file photo Patty Summers is the founder of the Youngstown Blue Coats, which collects coats and other winter gear for the less fortunate, especially veterans. The organization has served the tri-county area for the past six years.

HUBBARD — Patty Summers is all about helping people. Just don’t ask her to talk about herself because she has a hard time doing so.

Summers, a Hubbard native who graduated from Hubbard High School in 1975, is the founder of the Youngstown Blue Coats, a 501(c)3 organization that collects and distributes coats and other cold weather gear to those in need, with a special focus on veterans. It started about six years ago and its motto is “In America Nobody Should Freeze to Death.”

“My successes in life were the result of proper parenting and a team effort,” Summers said.

She was the oldest of five children that included three brothers and one sister.

“Looking back I had to, at times, be a mother figure. I was the oldest of five children and was responsible for completing the monumental ‘to do’ list when arriving home on the bus from school each day because my mom was working many hours to help support us, as well as my dad,” Summers said of being one of millions of “latchkey” kids nationwide in the 1960s and 1970s.

However, Summers said this independent, difficult and sometimes dysfunctional, life made her a better person. She admits that it helped her learn the importance of sharing and giving, and not to take anything for granted.

One of her idols is St. Teresa of Calcutta and she quotes her often, with phrases like “If you judge people, you have no time to love them” and “Be kind to others no matter what. No one should come to you for help without going away feeling better and happier.” Summers has spent her entire life trying to live by these examples and use the life skills she learned in her youth.

Summers has had various jobs beyond being a wife and mother. She worked in downtown Youngstown in the offices of Strouss department store and sold Tupperware before the children started school. Afterward, she became a preschool teacher and taught for five years. Then she worked as a waitress, worked at several stores and finally drove a school bus for 10 years in the Hubbard Local School District.

Her nurturing nature extends beyond her husband of 47 years, Patrick, son, Alex, and daughter, Sharon. The couple also has two grandchildren, Lucian and Isabella.

“For four years, I assisted my husband and brother-in-law taking care of my mother-in-law who had several heart attacks and strokes as well as kidney failure, and my father-in-law, who had colon cancer and needed his pills crushed up daily and fed through a tube since he couldn’t eat anything by mouth,” she said.

The Youngstown Blue Coats began after Summers helped a friend from Campbell collect and distribute winter coats to the homeless.

“I discovered soon after that I should never be judgmental and I should always be compassionate. The world would be more understanding and compassionate if they could only see what we come across when helping the homeless,” Summers said.

“I met military men and women who have lost their job, lost their home and then Family Services took their children away. One woman even said she just wants a place to call home so she can get her children back. We have come across homeless who seem to be freezing and close to death but refused coats and other clothing. One poor fellow in 20-degree weather said, ‘please give that coat and boots to someone more deserving than me.’ He then walked away with just a shirt on his back,” she said.

Summers and her staff give back 100 percent of all proceeds, whether received from donations or from grants, back to the organization. The Youngstown Blue Coats gave away 15 coats in its first year. Last year, on their fifth anniversary, they gave away 2,500 coats and other types of clothing for the needy. In the first month of 2023, Youngstown Blue Coats already had assisted more than 200 people.

The organization has grown to assist 11 counties in Ohio and Pennsylvania and it now works with 58 different agencies.

Summers was just named to the Marquis “Who’s Who in America,” which contains short biographies of great achievements people have made.