The volunteers

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Island Park teachers also knocked on doors, checking on their students. Village officials and employees, meanwhile, worked constantly after the storm to help residents. Ruzicka worked with the Board of Trustees day and night to secure resources for the village.

The employees of Sanitary District 7 in Oceanside also worked long and hard after the storm, collecting trash from sunup to sundown — before workers headed home to houses that were without heat or power, or completely destroyed.

Bob Transom and the Oceanside Community Service worked tirelessly to feed the needy, which comprised a large majority of the town. OCS held two separate dinners for residents, collected and distributed vast amounts of food, held toy drives so local children could have presents for Christmas and collected tens of thousands of dollars that will be distributed to the needy. Transom delivered food by bicycle when he couldn’t get gas for his car.

“Wendy Long and Susanne Saks got the idea to deliver pizza door to door,” Transom said. “And from that we started cooking thousands of meals a day and delivering them door to door in Oceanside.”

In Island Park, Terry Reichel coordinated the distribution of never-ending donations. No one asked her to do it, but she did it anyway. Without Reichel’s work, many people in the village might not have received the help and supplies they needed.

The Oceanside Knights of Columbus honored first responders at a Thanksgiving dinner.

Tommy Asher helped United Water organize a Thanksgiving dinner for displaced Island Park residents.

St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church, in Oceanside, became a repository of donations, collecting and distributing goods. The Chabad of Oceanside did the same, making sure people got the supplies they desperately needed.

Tom Cesiro III managed donations that came into Oceanside from out of town, finding places to store them and ways to distribute them.

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