September 2020 Newsletter

September 22, 2020October 18, 2020 Staten Island Giving Circle

It was so good to see nearly 30 of you on our September Zoom meeting. It’s much easier not to bother getting on yet another Zoom meeting after a long day, so we truly appreciate your efforts and support. Your support is essential in keeping the Staten Island Giving Circle intact and moving forward even as virtually everything in our lives continue to be on hold.
I will outline subjects discussed on the Wednesday call. The agenda was more of a conversation than in-depth decision making. The talk was free-flowing and seemed to engage everyone’s interest and participation.
SCHOOL INFORMATION AND ANTICIPATED TIME LINES: The uncertainty of all things COVID is most pronounced in the issues surrounding school re-openings. This not only affects us as parents, teachers, school workers, it affects the Giving Circle with our Weekend Food Backpack Program. As you know, we are posed to provide FIVE schools with backpacks for underserved children throughout this whole 2020-2021 school year. We were excited to think the schools would open this coming Monday, but as is common knowledge now, that date has been pushed back once again. Okay….so now our sights are riveted on the week of September 28. The administrators and Parent Teacher Coordinators at P.S. 21, P.S. 31, P.S. 57, P.S. 74 and I.S. 49 continue to assure us that they will be able to distribute the food to the designated students/families even if those particular kids are opting for remote learning. If the re-opening dates experience another setback, in order to meet our distribution and judicious utilization of gifted monies, we will add a couple of more students to each school to keep to our model.
SCHOOL SUPPLIES DISTRIBUTED: We are gratified to report that we collected enough school supplies to outfit over 1,000 underserved kids with the essential supplies required for their school days (either in person or virtual). The remarkable staff of Literacy Inc., our partners in this effort, have distributed the supplies to kits at P.S. 78, 65, 74, 57, 19, 20, 44 and 18.
VOLUNTEER LITERACY AND S.T.E.A.M. PROGRAM: Thanks to the overwhelmingly positive results of our Summer Reading Program (funded by Dollar General), we have collaborated with Literacy, Inc. to provide instruction to 24+ kids again for Reading (we actually have three additional “teachers” on board for this) for the entire school year. Then, thanks to two generous, talented retired teachers, we have been able to set up a S.T.E.A.M. Program. The S.T.E.M. part will be handled by MaryBeth McCarthy, a retired Science Teacher, and the “A” part (Art) will be handled by Christine Hanna, a retired Art Teacher. These programs will begin when the “official” school year begins (hopefully the beginning of October). These programs will be “after school”. The programs are already filled and ready to proceed!
PORTRAIT PROGRAM: We started our Portrait Fundraising Initiative a couple of months ago with PET Portraits. Collaborators Carolyn Corbo and Christine Hanna continue to enhance this original idea and we are now offering HOUSE and CAR Portraits. We have attached the flyers for both here on this summary. Christine’s husband actually thought of the antique or specialty car photos as a great nod to our male friends/family and we have completed several of those transactions now. But we think it’s the HOUSE idea that might bring the most interest. If you want a photo of your current house, a house you grew up in, a new house you are buying, take a photo and Carolyn and Christine will digitize and mat it for you and you will have a great memento. These are also great gifts as we begin to think of the holiday giving season.
SOUTH SHORE COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY organized and run by Joe Meizlik is still running outside The Reformed Church of Prince Bay on Seguine Avenue and hopefully can continue through October. It is open on the weekends. Joe is a community leader with great sensitivity to homeless and military veterans. His salute to Veterans Day to take place at Pouch Camp is still viable.
Holiday “gives” were discussed and Anna Pallotta was very interested in the possibility of including nursing homes in our distribution. She will discuss this further with Michele and me so we can come up with sensible ideas of who and what…..which nursing homes and what gifts. Although personal shopping for individual clients would be fun and nice, at this time during COVID, we must stick with one gift for men and one for women (perhaps flannel blankets or slippers, just as examples).
Our friend, Flynn, from Project Hospitality joined the fray on Wednesday and mentioned that sweat pants and sweatshirts are at the forefront of needs for the populations served by PH.
The Giving Circle provided Bob Sweeney with toiletries, blankets and gift cards to distribute to our homeless friends down near the ferry. Bob is another unsung hero for the desperate in our community.
The men from Grupo Manhattan advised us that they are looking for donations of cleaning supplies. We recently gave them a quantity of socks, hygiene products and t-shirts.
We continue to follow the progress or lack of it with regards to Act Cares. Ann Marie Selfridge, yet another community activist for people in crisis (Alzheimers) has not been given the go ahead to re-open her respite facility for her Alzheimers’ clients. The families housing these affected people at home are desperate for the program to re-open. We have put Ann Marie in touch with some community leaders for conversation on the best plans going forward.
Our next Zoom Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday evening, October 21, 7:00 p.m. That gives us plenty of days in between to think and comment on what we want to see happening at the Staten Island Giving Circle as we ramp up for another New Year. Please send thoughts, ideas, comments, or constructive criticism.