Thursday, December 12, 2024
One Uniondale woman’s passion for giving back has sparked a wave of encouragement and support across her community. Ebony Guerrier is a dedicated mother of three, a school paraprofessional and PTA member and the driving force behind Mrs. G’s Brown Bag Charity. What began as a way to stay motivated and connected during the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic has blossomed into a broader community initiative, bringing people together and lifting up those in need.
During the pandemic, Guerrier saw the needs of people around her, so she decided to host a food and clothing giveaway in the summer of 2020 at Randall Park in Freeport. This was her first venture into “charity work,” she said, and the start of her public altruism.
From there, Guerrier started a Facebook group called “Recipe Swap for the Quarantine,” for her friends and family to share recipes and ideas while everyone was stuck at home.
The page took off and became a “huge thing,” she said, among her followers, with ideas and activities including raffles and gifts that they mailed to one another’s homes.
“It was just a really fun time to bring light during a really hard time,” she said.
As her Facebook page grew, Guerrier wanted to do more. She and Kamilah Clahar, her “right hand,” began regularly hosting events and collections across the community. Another one of her earliest initiatives, and her organization’s second-ever event, was their inaugural Halloween Trunk or Treat in 2020 at Uniondale Avenue Park.
“It was a safe way to be outside without feeling scared to catch Covid,” she said, “and the kids still had a sense of what Halloween was, so it became a big thing.”
Guerrier’s Trunk or Treat event has since become a tradition, drawing families, schools and even local fire departments. It has grown over the years, and this year’s event was a partnership with Smith Street School PTA, of which she is a member.
Her Facebook initiative evolved from recipe swaps and raffles to her grass-roots charity organization, Mrs. G’s.
In addition to Halloween, Guerrier’s charity has expanded its reach to other holidays. She has created Thanksgiving baskets for families in need, organized toy giveaways at Christmastime and run annual Easter egg hunts for kids. For Mother’s Day in 2022, she hosted a party at Coe’s Neck Park, in Baldwin, for mothers to get together and create “vision boards” based on their goals and aspirations.
The money for all of these events, Guerrier said, comes out of her pocket, or from the donations and support of friends, family and the community.
“We reach out into our community for support, and they support us because they know and believe in what we do,” she said.
But Guerrier has bigger dreams for her organization: to become an official nonprofit.
“It’s just been so rewarding over the years to have gained the notoriety that we have,” she said, “and the only thing that has stopped us from getting more sponsorships and support is that we don’t have that status yet. So that is the goal, to get it done sooner than later.”
In addition to her charity, Guerrier is a paraprofessional at Smith Street School, where she has worked for two years, and has been a member of Smith Street PTA for the past year and a half. She is also a mother of three children, ages 17, 10 and 8.
“I’ve always been the type of person that loves to give, and I wanted to be that type of person to encourage others to give as well,” she said. “My goal was to encourage people within the communities to give back to their own communities, because right here, there are struggling families.”
