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Overcast Hope for the holiday in Long Beach
Bags of Hope reaches those in need for Thanksgiving
About 20 volunteers at the Martin Luther King center served and delivered food and other items to those in need on a bustling Tuesday afternoon — just hours before a large Thanksgiving gathering at the center.
“This is our fifth year, and we’ve been doing it for quite a while — we feed over 250 families,” said Debora Staiano, who organizes an MLK Center program called Bags of Hope with MLK Center board Chairman James Hodge and others, with the purpose of providing the less fortunate with non-perishable food and other items.
“There’s seniors, single-parents — if they’re lower-income families or just people in need, we give it to them,” she said.
The program was started in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, when Hodge and other volunteers delivered food and supplies to seniors and other residents who were stuck in high-rise buildings as power outages disrupted elevator service for weeks.
It was among the many initiatives that took place in town this week to help those in need for Thanksgiving.
About 20 volunteers assisted in Tuesday’s effort at the MLK Center. The bags the volunteers prepared included turkeys and all the Thanksgiving trimmings. The bags themselves are recyclable, and were donated by All Our Energy, a local nonprofit that promotes renewable energy.
Others who donated ranged from the Lions Club, State Sen. Todd Kaminsky and Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office, which donated more than 150 turkeys with trimmings. The Rec Center, meanwhile, donated turkeys and canned goods it gathered during last weekend’s Turkey Trot.
Hodge said that about 300 people turned out for the dinner, where about 30 volunteers were on hand serving meals.
“It was different chefs from around the community who came together with the MLK Center to help our sponsors, who provided the food,” Hodge said. “We had deliveries going out for people who were shut in; for homebound seniors and individuals in need. In following Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream, a lot of the things we’re doing is understanding that hunger is a major issue not only across the country, but here in Long Beach, and we will continue doing whatever we can to make sure we are providing in a holistic way to our community.”
