JAY – Barbara Cook and Gayla Drake are on a mission.

Cook taped the bottom of a cardboard box and tossed it off the table to join others piled on the floor.

Drake put a new, dark-colored coat inside one of those boxes and was taping it shut.

The women joked as they speedily worked to set up the gifts to be wrapped by fellow members of the Jay-Livermore-Livermore Falls Rotary Club at 7:30 this morning at LaFleur’s Restaurant, where they worked on Monday.

Several wrapped boxes already lined the wall near a Christmas tree in the restaurant’s function room.

Cook and Drake had spent hours shopping for the new coats. They hit stores and some big deals in Jay, Freeport, Windham, Augusta, Lewiston and New Hampshire.

This was the biggest year for requests for children in need of coats in the six schools in Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls, Drake said.

They had requests for 121 coats and a pair of boots.

North Jay Grange members had made knitted items including mittens and scarves to go with the coats.

It was also the most costly year, Drake said.

Last year, there were requests for 83 coats and the average cost was $23.63 a coat, she said, as she reviewed her files.

This year, the number jumped as did the coat costs, even with some fantastic deals ranging up to 70 percent off, she said.

The average cost this year was $33 a coat.

“My first year when I started in 1995, 10 coats were requested,” she said. “The average cost of the coats was $47.”

The Rotary holds a charity auction each year to support its programs. The proceeds go to club projects including the coats, high school senior scholarships and the tower clock fund. They raised about $3,700 at the auction.

They also do a “Spirit of the Season Tree,” where people pay $5 for a bulb in memory or honor of a special person. The money goes to the coat project.

They’ve asked for some support from others this year to help offset the coat costs so that they can fund their other projects as well.

The Jay-Livermore-Livermore Falls Chamber of Commerce offered to help with a donation, Drake said. If anyone else wants to help out, they can mark on their check that they want the money to go to the coats and send donations to:

Jay/Livermore/Livermore Falls Rotary

c/o Rachel LaBrecque

Androscoggin Bank

38 Main St.

Livermore Falls, ME 04254

After the wrapping Tuesday, Rotary Club members plan to deliver them to the schools Tuesday afternoon, just in time for Christmas.