Spreading baskets of holiday cheer

Sisters Gina and Christina Principato, both graduates of W.T. Clarke High School, returned to their old school last Friday to help the East Meadow Kiwanis Club sort food into bags, to be delivered the next morning by club members to 125 families in the local community who have fallen on hard times.

Donovan Berthoud/Herald

East Meadow Kiwanis club members and students sorted food last Friday that was accumulated in food drives the club hosted outside local supermarkets.

Donovan Berthoud/Herald

The scene in the school cafeteria was one of “organized chaos.”

Donovan Berthoud/Herald

Clarke Key Club Members Alexa Balatbat), Marissa Flaherty, and Alexis Sealis, all juniors, led by example.

Donovan Berthoud/Herald

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You’d be hard pressed to find a more fitting manifestation of holiday spirit than the W.T. Clarke High School cafeteria last Friday, where more than 100 local residents spent the evening assembling gift baskets to deliver to needy families for Christmas and Hanukkah.

It’s a regular seasonal activity for the East Meadow Kiwanis Club, which, for the past two decades, has delivered such baskets two other times during the year: at Easter and Passover, and at Thanksgiving.

In the cafeteria last week, Kiwanians were joined, as usual, by dozens of students from the organization’s school-sponsored clubs — Key Club, Builders Club, and K-Kids, for high school, middle school and elementary students, respectively.

The activity began at 6 p.m., with tables piled high with canned and boxed foods, giving the room the look of a miniature supermarket. A food drive precedes each holiday delivery, and the weekend before, Kiwanians had spent hours outside the Waldbaum’s on Merrick Avenue and Front Street, soliciting donations.

The community’s response to the club is so generous that, according to longtime member Ivan Launer, shoppers often leave the store, see the Kiwanians, turn around, go back in and shop some more in order to donate.

The club collected so much food in its recent Thanksgiving donation drive that it needed only one weekend at Waldbaum’s, instead of the usual two, to gather enough for last week’s deliveries. The club also received a donation from the New Hope Church in Westbury.

With such a load, you might expect the gift basket assembling to take all night. But with so much practice, the club has it down to a science. Without even so much as a pre-sorting pep talk, Kiwanians and students alike worked with assembly-line precision, wasting no time. Within minutes, bags of foods were being lined against the walls.

Kiwanis President Kevin Kamper described the event as an evening of “organized chaos.”

Kiwanis receives a list of families who have fallen on hard financial times from East Meadow School District social workers. Each family receives three bags, one of which contains a ham, turkey or chicken, based on the family’s choice. On Saturday, the club delivered food to 125 families.