Helping Out: Part II: Staten Island Bernikow JCC
from Rochester to Staten Island, all the donations made it down safely. My family with David Sorkin, exec director of the Bernikow JCC, Staten Island
A few weeks back, I wrote the first part of helping out back in Staten Island
I called it Part I which means, of course, there will be at least a sequel.
Well, it’s been a rough few weeks healthwise in our household so my apologies for the hold up on Part II.
It turns out that my synagogue’s education director in Rochester is childhood friends with David Sorkin, the executive director of the JCC in Staten Island. Our synagogue was collecting donations for Sandy victims in Staten Island. Their only problem: how were they going to deliver the goods?
So, in addition to helping out the fine volunteers at Guyon Rescue, with the help of my husband’s colleagues at General Motors, we borrowed the biggest Suburban you’d ever lay your eyes on and filled it with the gently used and new toys, books, art supplies and toiletries to be distributed through the Bernikow Jewish Community Center of Staten Island.
When I returned home to Rochester, Temple Beth El received the following letter from the JCC in thanks for our donation:
Dear Families of Temple Beth El,
Thank you very much for the toys, books, games and gifts that you collected for the children of our community who have suffered great losses from Hurricane Sandy. Also, special thanks to Stacy Gittleman and family for delivering supplies to the JCC.
As fate would have it, we received a call on Monday morning from a day care center that experienced damage from the storm and they were seeking replacement supplies. In addition, we sent some of the supplies to one of the shelters that are housing families. They were setting up a play room for the children, and your donations helped to create a warm and welcoming space in an otherwise bare and sterile environment. Some of these same children received the cards that were made by the children at your school.
Most of all, we must tell you that your acts of kindness will be remembered by all involved long after these families return to their homes and their lives get back to normal. …..
Thank you again to all my Rochester friends, neighbors and congregants who filled bins and my garage with donations that we brought down to Staten Island. I just wanted to share this letter with you to know how much it was appreciated.
Helping out, Part I: Guyon Rescue, Staten Island
with wreckage in the background, Sandy relief workers from Guyon Rescue in Staten Island wrapped Christmas presents in this tent. My parents house, my childhood house, is just on the other side of this field.
Over my Christmas vacation, I spent hours on a cold floor in Staten Island rolling black plastic contractor bags into bundles of ten.
On my knees, I wrestled with the bags as a camper would a slippery sleeping bag and secured them together with a rubber band. Though this job seemed minor and menial in the scope of helping in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, to someone else who needed those bags to clean up whatever was left of their house, it might mean a lot.
As I worked, a steady stream of volunteers flitted in an out, stocking shelves as well as dropping off supplies. One woman who seemed somewhat in charge said she had volunteered at the Post every single day since the storm hit. Other shelters were closing on the Island and this leading volunteer feared that already, the rest of the world was forgetting what happened here.
She’s the one who needed those contractor bags bundled.
And she needed me to divide up other supplies like steel wool pads with those tiny pods of dish soap.
And she had socks that needed sorting and baby food inspected for expiration dates. My three kids got on that job.
At Guyon Rescue, there is no need for volunteers to make a reservation. There are no shifts. No training videos or marketing messages like other food pantries where my family has volunteered. You just show up and say you want to help. And they put you right to work.
Guyon Rescue is not a shelter, exactly. No one sleeps there. But to the many neighbors in this devastated area of Staten Island, Guyon Rescue has become a vital resource for short-term help since Hurricane Sandy.
Guyon Rescue is an all-volunteer grassroots network of workers and donors that have set up camp in a VFW Lodge around the corner from my childhood home, across the street from so many homes damaged and destroyed. Two months after the storm, you would not believe how people are still living unless you walk the streets here for yourself.
- The lodge where I went to Brownie meetings has become Guyon Rescue, a grassroots organization that collects and distributes necessities for Sandy victims on Staten Island.
My husband and I also worked outside. With numbed fingers, we scrubbed out a donated refrigerator until the shelves were clean enough to eat from. We dried off equipment and supplies in a make-shift outdoor kitchen sheltered only by a tattered, tarp roof. Many of those preparing meals lived in the neighborhood and could tell stories of the storm surge. Of how many feet of water was in their basement. Or up to the ground floor. In the aisles of the food pantry, one woman collecting goods after she showed her FEMA card at the door told me how she swam out of her house. 
It was Christmas Day, and soon, many who still had no power – or were camped out in cars near the remains of their property – would be coming to the post for a hot lunch.
At night, just a quarter mile from Guyon Rescue, my husband and I slept in my parent’s basement on an air mattress. It’s been two months since the storm and the basement looks back to normal. Except they lost most of their furniture when it became flooded with nearly four feet of water.
Now, don’t you go taking out any tiny violins for me or my family. We are the lucky ones.
Over my Christmas vacation to New York city, I also saw the Scream,
and Starry Night
and still-life paintings from Cezanne.
We dined on the finest hot dogs and kinishes a New York City street vendor could offer.
And of course, we visited the tree in Rockefeller Center.
But if you ask me what was the best – the BEST part of my Christmas vacation back to New York City, it was volunteering with the good people at Guyon Rescue.
Want to make a difference in Staten Island with Guyon Rescue? Keep updated by following them on Facebook here. Because the recovery is not over.
In Staten Island, it’s only getting started.
Former NYC, NJ Rochesterians come together to Help Sandy victims
Here is my column that appeared online in this week’s D&C, plus a little bit more that was shaved off. I’m still thinking of all of you in Staten Island, Queens, and on the Shore
When Anderson Cooper shows up to cover a natural disaster in your old neighborhood, it must be bad. The CNN correspondent who was on the ground reporting the likes of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the earthquake in Haiti walked the streets of my Staten Island childhood. He put the spotlight on the remains of bungalow homes that lined the quiet streets where I rode my bicycle. He interviewed people as they shivered waiting to sign up for FEMA assistance in a field where my brother played soccer.
For me and many other Rochesterians with ties to downstate New York and New Jersey, to say that Sandy hit home is a huge understatement. Carole Diamond Frankel of Brighton also took in the scenes of her devastated hometowns of Oceanside and Long Beach with a heavy heart. She wished she could physically be there to help but did what she could from afar.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” she said, as she kept updated with friends through Facebook and email. Within days, she coordinated her own collections of clothing and supplies, which she then drove to the Sea Breeze Volunteer Fire Association in Irondequoit. Her collection melded into the hundreds of bags and boxes of other donations given from the Rochester community.
I want to personally thank this organization, especially April Handel, the associations’ president, and volunteer Garrett Bastuk. They drove a 26-foot truck to affected sections of New York. One such collection center is hosted by a Staten Island church where I had fond memories of making “Shrinky-Dink” key chains and other crafts in a summer day camp program. This relief center is so close to my parents’ home that they recently walked there to pick up batteries for their flashlights and bleach to clean out their flooded basement.
Another group of families from Brighton and Pittsford with downstate roots have also banded together to help with a bagel breakfast fundraiser called “Sand-Aid” taking place this Sunday, Nov. 18. For a donation of $15, patrons will be treated this Sunday morning to Bruegger’s
Bagels, cream cheese, fruit and the Sunday’s Democrat & Chronicle to be picked up in Pittsford Plaza. For $20, breakfast will be delivered within a 10-mile radius of Pittsford Plaza. All funds will be donated to The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City. This is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization giving long and short-term hurricane relief and restoration to the worst affected areas.
“My cousin in Hoboken jokes that he now has two pools: one in his basement and one that used to be his backyard,” said Pittsford’s Phil Schaff, whose three children have actively publicized the fundraiser. Schaff’s parents, both in their 80’s, have also endured days with no power or heat in East Brunswick, N.J.
The fundraiser generated such a large response that there may be a second Sand-Aid bagel breakfast in the near future. If you would like to have a Sunday bagel breakfast delivered to you as a thanks for contributing to Sandy relief, please email sandaidrochester@gmail.com to be included.
Disasters like Sandy magnify the significance of Thanksgiving. It is not about Black Friday shopping or football games but gratitude for life’s most basic comforts of a warm home and supportive circles of family, friends, and neighbors. In this spirit of coming together, the Victor Parks and Recreation Department has planned its annual Senior Thanksgiving potluck lunch for noon on Wednesday, Nov. 21 at the Victor Parks and Recreation building, 1290 Blossom Drive. For more information, go to www.victorny.org or call 742-0140
Contact Stacy Gittleman at dnceastextra@gmail.com with news and notable people from eastside towns.
If You Go
What: Town of Victor Senior Potluck Luncheon
When: noon Wednesday, Nov. 21
Where: Victor Parks and Recreation building, 1290 Blossom Drive, Victor
Information: $1 fee. Bring a dish to pass. To register with the dish you are bringing to pass, go to www.victorny.org or call 742-0140
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Stacy Gittleman 