Friends,
It takes a village… At 8:30 am Monday, November 16th the Feeding NY truck pulled up to the Parish Hall and six volunteers from Reworld manually unloaded 300 turkeys. This added to the 75 turkeys we received from Winter Brothers ( who have donated many turkeys for the past three years) and the 75 we received from the Babylon Rotary Club, another longtime donor. St Anne’s parishioners in Garden City built all the food baskets and delivered them to the Outreach a few days before, and the Suffolk County Police Hispanic Society provided all the onions, fresh garlic, and some chickens. St John the Baptist DHS in West Islip, for the tenth year, also donated food for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Temple Beth Torah also is a supporter for many years. The year-round financial support of Rothco, Harbor Seafood Inc., the Mike Ryan Family, John Sauer, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the Town of Babylon has enabled the Outreach to stay open year round. This year was extremely busy with many new families in need, and fortunately, we were able to provide services to one of the poorest communities on Long Island, with your help. By the end of the day on 11/16, with 20 tired but happy volunteers, we distributed around 450 turkeys and food baskets, chickens and hams to our clients. Our uniqueness as a street-level, community-based parish charity is our partner and volunteer diversity.
Last week we started to build and distribute Christmas toy bags for 500 children (we give three new toys to each child). This makes it much easier rather than to distribute it all in one day. We build the bags and call the families to pick them up. The toys are in big black plastic bags so the children do not see what is in them. The parents are very, very appreciative; the children would not get anything for the holidays if not for these toys.
Current needs:
With people living in local woods, all over Long Island, a need has come up again for sleeping bags and tarps. If you have any that you no longer need, please let me know. This is nothing new, just a sad reality.
There is a demand for winter coats of all sizes this year, and we will need more after we finish up the Food Distribution next week. Clean, gently used coats are welcome.
We are getting close to our annual Polar Bear Plunge 12:00 Noon at Jones Beach on January 1st! If you want to join us (Rich Schaffer you’re invited), call me and I will provide details!
Thank you for being part of our Village. Have a happy and healthy holiday.
Joe
