Creating more ‘Aktion’ to help special needs adults

The real thing about this is creating something for the community and young adults with special needs.”

Frank Mistero, Aktion Club Committee chairman

Working in groups, gaining leadership experience and giving back to the community are several of the opportunities available to young adults in the newly formed chapter of Peninsula Kiwanis Club’s Aktion Club.

The ANCHOR Program, along with Peninsula Kiwanis announced the creation of the Aktion Club chapter on Jan. 15. The Aktion Club is a community service group for adults with special needs. Activities include fundraising, planting trees, recycling, landscaping and other activities for members to help enhance the community. 

“It takes a strong person to face the challenges that our ANCHOR participants face each day, and it takes an even stronger person to overcome those challenges to give back to the community in profound and positive ways,” Hempstead Town Supervisor Anthony J. Santino, said, of the new chapter.

The Aktion Club’s mission is “to provide adults living with disabilities an opportunity to develop initiative, leadership skills and to serve their communities.” The core values of the Aktion Club include: character building, leadership, inclusiveness and caring. 

“We want to make them feel good about their own program,” Maryann Hanson, acting coordinator at ANCHOR, said. She has been working with ANCHOR for 27 years and added that some of the club’s activities would include cleaning up the beach, making dog biscuits for the Town of Hempstead animal shelter in Wantagh and gardening.

Frank Mistero, chairman of the Kiwanis Aktion Club Committee for the ANCHOR Program, said that Peninsula Kiwanis has worked alongside ANCHOR for more than 40 years. He added that the Kiwanis Aktion Club would enhance the impact of both the Kiwanis and ANCHOR on the Town of Hempstead. “The real thing about this is creating something for the community and young adults with special needs,” Mistero said, “I think that’s key.”

ANCHOR is a Lido Beach-based program created in 1968 that has been serving about 1,200 children and adults age five and over with special needs year-round through summer, weekday and weekend activities.  

Hempstead Town supported a beach recycling program last year. Recycling proceeds from town beaches helped to fund Camp ANCHOR. An event was held at the Malibu Beach Club in Lido Beach in July, where participants tossed the items to be recycled into the bins decorated by ANCHOR campers.

The Aktion Club will hold its first meeting on Feb. 1, when it will elect a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer, Mistero said. The club will consist of a group of at least 15 adults between the ages of 25 and 35 from the town, Hanson said. “All of them have grown up through ANCHOR,” she said.