Generous donations feed a food need in the Five Towns and New York City

From television to Broadway (the one in Hewlett), generous donations of food have helped to feed families in the Five Towns and New York City during the coronavirus pandemic.

Individuals such as photographer and Atlantic Beach resident Jodi Applebaum, who has been keeping busy taking free front porch portraits of families, has also donated to help the volunteers at the Five Towns Community Center in Lawrence – Sarah Hayes, Byron Alvarado and Sasha Young – to distribute meals nearly every day. “Everybody is pitching in,” Young said, adding that fellow Inwood resident Atasha Mays Fredericks has also contributed to the food collection.

Food has also come through Cedarhurst-based Rock and Wrap It Up! as CEO and founder Syd Mandelbaum and his wife, Diane, continually deliver food to the Community Center that originates from several sources, including Monday’s delivery of 250 meals from the CBS television productions of the “Good Fight and “Evil.”   

“We have received food from the two shows the last three seasons,” Syd said outside the Community Center on April 27. Three days earlier 250 meals from the TV shows were donated to the Woodycrest United Methodist Church in the Bronx. On April 28, 250 meals were given to the United Methodist Church in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.

“Everything went very smoothly today,” Lynn Powers of CBS said about the Bronx delivery. “The rain held up until after we finished. Had some good volunteers including my son and daughter. Were able to give away all 250 boxed meals and bottle water.”

Rock and Wrap It Up! has partnered with the Community Center since 1999, Syd said, bringing food and other needed items. “I am bringing 20 meals to members of my American Legion post, they’re all over 70, he said on Monday.

Looking much more like the Hunts Point food market, the center’s lobby is full of tables piled with food. Donations have also come from the Bagelry in Cedarhurst, Trader Joes in Hewlett and Walls bakery, also in Hewlett.