Celebrating the Five Towns giving spirit

It’s nearly time to pass the potatoes, cook the big bird and celebrate Thanksgiving. It's a holiday that suggests helping others and supporting charities, similar to how the Native Americans helped the Pilgrims through their first year of establishing a colony. Anyone with the means to donate food, other items or their time to volunteer can live out that same spirit of giving. 

The Mayflower left England carrying 102 passengers in September 1620 headed to the New World. The passengers traveled for 66 days until reaching Cape Cod. A month later, the travelers, who are now known as the Pilgrims, crossed the Massachusetts Bay and began to establish a colony at Plymouth.

A year after the Pilgrims’ arrival, in November 1621, Governor William Bradford organized a feast. It is remembered as the first Thanksgiving and was attended by the Pilgrims and their Native American allies to celebrate their settlement and successful corn harvest. Their festival lasted for three days. 

The tradition of that first celebration has remained throughout our nation’s history. George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789 and asked Americans to celebrate their appreciation for the triumphant end of the American Revolution. Washington said: “Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer…” 

New York was the first state to officially declare an annual Thanksgiving holiday in 1817. During the Civil War, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared a national Thanksgiving Day to be held on the last Thursday of every November. “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving,” he said in the proclamation. 

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, students at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) High School seniors Dani and Sara Kaufman, are spearheading a canned food drive until Nov. 24 to benefit the Woodmere-based Rina Shkolnik Kosher Food Pantry, which associated with the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC. 

HAFTR seniors Ally Polansky and Arielle Herman created Project Beauty this year to collect cosmetics and toiletries for the Bethany House in Baldwin, a shelter for homeless woman and children through Thanksgiving, The students will also deliver the donations. The school is hosted an event through Chasing Peace, a charity organization dedicated to distributing shoes to kids all over the world, on Nov. 13 during which the eighth-graders decorated sneakers that will be donated.  

The food pantry is always collecting food. To seasonal items and non-perishable food for Thanksgiving, call (516) 295-5678. The JCC will hold a coat drive the week after the holiday, and distribute coats the first weekend in December. To donate, call the JCC at (516) 569-6733. 

Community Chest South Shore will distribute hundreds of turkeys and food cards to those in need. The organization has also collected approximately 850 coats to donate. To get involved through donations or volunteering, call (516) 374-5800 or visit www.communitychestss.org/volunteer. 

Life Clubs, a fitness facility at 235 Mill St. in Lawrence, is running their Life Clubs Helping Families Annual Thanksgiving Food Drive through Nov. 20. Donating two nonperishable food items gets you full access to the club for a day. Drop off is between 6 and 9 a.m. daily. The donations will benefit the JCC. For more information, call (516) 239-4343.

On Thanksgiving Day, Cedarhurst-based Rock and Wrap It Up! will host its the 22nd Annual Rock and Wrap It Up! Thanksgiving Luncheon between 8:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. at St. John Baptist Church at 7405 Rockaway Beach Blvd. in Averne. 

To volunteer, email dmandelbaum@rockandwrapitup.org, indicating which one of the four shifts you could work. Shifts are 8:30-10:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. to noon, noon to 1:30 p.m. and 1:30 to 3 p.m. Volunteers are asked to donate a minimum of $10 per person to defray the cost of the day.