Community Chest South Shore: a new name, a new purpose

After two years of planning, the 85-year-old Five Towns Community Chest is rebranding itself as Community Chest South Shore, intending to expand into the surrounding communities and enlarge its Neighbors Helping Neighbors program.

An official announcement was made Tuesday in Andrew J. Parise Cedarhurst Park.

Community Chest is a charitable organization that raises money for the Five Towns Community Center, the Five Towns Early Learning Center, the Tempo Group Inc. and the Center for Adult Life Enrichment to help the constituencies these institutions serve.

The Neighbors Helping Neighbors program assists individuals and families who face a variety of hardships, like being unable to afford their heating bills or winter clothes for their children. Since the program’s inception in 2011, the organizations Community Chest supports have given out nearly $1 million, and more than a third of the total has helped more than 700 families, said Steven J. Spiro, Community Chest’s president for the past five years.

“In recent years, Chest has recognized that the geographic area of those served by our community’s service organizations, as well as with our Neighbors Helping Neighbors, has expanded,” explained Spiro, a Woodmere resident who has been involved with Community Chest for more than 30 years, and says he learned from his father, Elliot, a longtime board member, how important it is to give back to the community.

“While we still support the Five Towns and surrounding communities, we’ve become more liberal with our definition of ‘surrounding,’” Spiro added. “Consistent with that philosophy, we’d also like to expand the boundaries of our reach for donors. In a name, Community Chest South Shore seems to bring both of those goals together.”

The organization was founded in 1931 as Community Chest of Hewlett, Woodmere, Cedarhurst, Lawrence and Inwood. 

Its renaming was about maintaining its importance to the people it serves, said Cal Nathan, a Hewlett resident and a second-year vice president who has been involved with the group for five years. “We wanted to make sure the organization was relevant to the community, and Community Chest is looking to help the community in a more meaningful way.”

For Joel Block, executive director of the Cedarhurst-based Marion & Aaron Gural JCC, Community Chest’s Neighbors Helping Neighbors program is a “vital lifeline” that supports people who are often in danger of losing their housing and need basic necessities. “Community Chest South Shore is our philanthropic neighborhood response for those in crisis in our community,” Block said. “Their support of our Rina Shkolnik Kosher Food Pantry helps the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC to serve over 300 families and 700 children. As the Community Chest South Shore, they will be able to increase the scope of their efforts, and our entire South Shore region will benefit.”

September is a huge month for Community Chest. In addition to the new name, the organization will hold its annual 5K Run & Family Run this Sunday in Atlantic Beach. For more information, go to http://bit.ly/2bmsJZp. And on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 17 and 18, the 32nd annual Community Chest fair will take place in Cedarhurst Park from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Neighbors Helping Neighbors dinner is slated for Nov. 3 at the Lawrence Yacht & Country Club. These fundraisers, along with private donations, support the work Community Chest does.

“No matter how our mission statement is written, our core values remain unchanged,” Spiro said. “We want to help as many of our neighbors in need as possible. Some will be helped by services provided by the organizations we support financially, and others with more specific short-term needs will feel our assistance more directly.”