We announced the winners of The Winter Warmth Awards late last week, recognizing individuals and organizations that made the largest donations to The 20th Annual New York Cares Coat Drive.

New York Cares Coat Drive founder (and 20 year volunteer at Grand Central Terminal where she collects coats every year) Suzanne Davis shares how the Coat Drive started and her thoughts about the award.

The 2008 Winter Warmth Awards Winners are:

* NYPD Awards: NYPD precincts collected more than 28,000 coats in 2008, 42% of the 67,000 collected citywide.

o NYPD Award #1: 19th Precinct, 2,000 coats (Manhattan).

o NYPD Award #2: 112th Precinct, 1,730 coats (Queens).

o NYPD Award #3: 111th Precinct, 1,720 coats (Queens).

* Top Youth Team Award: The Horace Mann School, 177 coats

* Top Corporate Team Award: The Young Men’s/Women’s Real Estate Association of New York, 1,552 coats.

* Top Retail Collection Award: Oz Moving & Storage, 624 coats.

* Lifetime Achievement Award: Suzanne Davis for starting the Coat Drive in 1989.

* Certificates of Achievement: Mary Drayne & Helen Pommery for 20 years of volunteer service.

* Founding Supporter: JM Kaplan Fund for making the Coat Drive possible.

The New York Cares Coat Drive is an annual lifeline for New York’s neediest citizens during the cold winter months. The Drive collects gently used adult and children’s coats during the month of December throughout the metropolitan area, and distributes them to struggling men, women and children at homeless shelters, community organizations, and agencies for senior citizens. This year the Drive was extended to January 9, 2009. More than one million coats have been collected since the Coat Drive’s inception in 1989.

Presenting Sponsor Health Plus is a not-for-profit, multicultural organization that is one of the largest managed care organizations in New York City. Health Plus provides free and affordable healthcare for children and adults in New York City and Nassau County, and currently keeps nearly 280,000 New Yorkers healthy, happy, and strong.

Commercial real estate firm Jack Resnick & Sons generously donated a 10,000 square foot space to serve as the warehouse to collect and sort the coats. Other sponsors included The New York City Police Department, The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), WNBC 4/Telemundo, Time Warner Cable, UPS, 98.7 Kiss FM, and JWT.