August 2023 Newsletter
NEXT MEETING Thursday, September 21 at 7pm Oakwood Heights Community Church in person and Zoom. We’ve added Harvest Intercontinental Church, 402 Bay Street, Rev. Faith to our Adopt-a-Pantry list. This Liberian community is hoping to launch a small food pantry at their church site.  We had volunteers at Lifestyles Educational Center on August 9th to assist with their Pasta Night Event. Michele reported that this event was very successful, over 200 guests, which we love since Seniors are one of our primary groups of interest. Volunteers from Northfield Bank went to Act Cares yesterday for Senior Day to spend time with the clients.  We have sent Back To School Supplies directly to 5 schools and we have supported several Community Partners with items for their events, as well as working with teachers getting their classrooms ready for the 2023-2024 school year. We will be offering pajama and book give aways to underserved students.  As of right now we are working with our Partner schools for a Fall event.  Charlotte Sciarrino and her Literacy Sub-Committee will meet at Island Kia to set out this school year’s plan. Charlotte is looking for additional mentors so we can assist more students. Charlotte has a comprehensive, organized “lesson plans” to introduce to the mentors. Please consider joining to help kids who are struggling with reading to reach their full potential. See flyer for Charlotte’s contact info.   Click here to donate directly to Value A Veteran We are so pleased to say that we have launched our Value-a-Veteran initiative. Steve Shapiro (Rolling Thunder) is leading this initiative and Alex Marrocco jump-started our savings for it. We have assisted three veterans in need so far. This is to help veterans who are homebound or homeless or who have extenuating circumstances.  Carole Speth will be back with desserts! We’ll have a couple of special guests: Maddie’s Sweet Treats will be stopping by to present us with a check from past cookie sales. SIBOR YPN (Staten Island Board or Realtors Young Professionals Network) will be presenting a check from their June Casino Night Fundraiser. Our Guest Speaker will be from Northwell Health/Staten Island University Hospital Center for Breast Health. They will be speaking about breast cancer awareness, prevention and treatment.  Click to buy your ticket! Our newest fundraiser is for The Weekend Food Backpack Program. Nancy Schulhoff donated a beautiful handmade quilt to raffle. So far we have sold almost 100 tickets. Tickets for Girl Power will be available for purchase until our November meeting. See flyer below.   To make a donation please use the following: Venmo: @StatenIslandGivingCircle PayPal:SIGivingCircle@aol.com Checks may be mailed to: Staten Island Giving Circle PO Box 120301 Staten Island NY 10312 We have secured some sponsorships and raffle prizes for our October 15th Pasta Dinner and Basket Bash, and we are looking to fill lots of Gift Baskets for our guests to take chances on.  Please note that we are looking for donations of new items for the gift baskets (re-gifting, new purchases, gift cards, etc.). If you received a gift that you would like to pass along, please contact us. We are looking for new items we can use for our Fundraising events.  We get inquiries for teens looking to score service hours to satisfy school requirements. We have been recommending the students organize a collection of food (cereal, granola bars, fruit cups) to be used for our Food Insecurity initiatives. Students can create flyers, host the collection and deliver to the recipient for their service credit.  Please contact us for a list of items needed. Michele Yacovello 917.733.7937 MicheleSIGC@gmail.com Evelyn Kormanik H: 718.980.4862 C: 646.240.7486 sigivingcircle@aol.com   |