Wantagh Lions donate $1,300 to Mommas House in Levittown

When there are people in need, the Lions Club doesn’t hesitate to lend a helping hand.

To help provide young, struggling mothers with basic needs, members of Wantagh Lions paid a visit to Mommas House, in Levittown, on Feb. 21 to deliver a check for $1,300. According to the club, the money was for a new washer-dryer for the facility.

“We’re doing it to better the situation in the community, especially our communities, because we know there’s a need, and we try and fulfill as much as we can,” club President Jose Obregon said.

The Lions serve the community through money donations, food collections, or providing aid to those who need it. The Wantagh club is part of Lions Club International, the world’s largest service club organization, with around 1.4 million members and more than 40,000 clubs.

According to Larry Lamendola, the Wantagh Lions’ first vice president, two of the organization’s mottos are “We serve” and “Where there’s a need, there’s a lion.”

“There was a need here,” Lamendola said of Mommas House.

For almost 40 years, Mommas House has provided a temporary shelter for young mothers who have nowhere else to go. The facility is a nonprofit that offers housing support services for them and their infant children. The residents, ages 18 to 24, stay for up to two years, and the facility works with them to find housing.

While in the program, the mothers help with chores and care for their children while they learn to become independent. Patricia Shea, Momma’s House’s associate director, says the organization “takes care of the hidden” on Long Island.

“In Nassau and Suffolk, you don’t see a lot of homeless people on the street, and certainly not mothers with babies,” Shea said, “but they’re sleeping on people’s couches, in cars, in very inappropriate housing, so you don’t see them, but there is that population on Long Island.”

According to Lamendola, Lions member Christopher Quinn brought Mommas House to the club’s attention, and members met with Shea to discuss what the facility needed. She said there was a need for a new washer-dryer, so the Lions voted to allocate money for a new one.

Shea said the money is a tremendous benefit to the home, because the few washer-dryers they had for the residents to do their laundry were barely working. “It means a great deal to us,” Shea said of the Lions’ donation.

Mommas House, according to Shea, accommodates six families, each living in a suite where the mother and child each have a room. It has shared spaces including living and dining rooms, a daycare room and a kitchen. The facility is supported by grants, donations and fundraisers. Shea says it costs around $2,500 each month to take care of one family, which covers rent, utilities, insurance, and staff costs.

Women in the program are offered workshops in which teachers and bankers teach life skills such as budgeting, and attorneys teach them about custody, parental rights, and child support. The goal, according to Shea, is to help them become more employable, given the challenge of living in Nassau County.

“On Long Island we really don’t believe that we have this sadness and need” Shea said. “We look around and we see people living in houses with nice cars, and the schools are good and you think all is right with the world, but there is so much behind closed doors.”

One of the residents, 21-year-old Naseaiah Rogers, is training at Community Home Care, in Glen Cove, to become a personal care aid while taking care of her son, 1-year-old Hezekiah Rogers-Creary. Rogers and her son have been at Mommas House for two months. Before they arrived there, she said, she had lived in foster care for six years after leaving an abusive household.

Mommas House has been a blessing for Rogers and her son, she said, because it offers a support system for young mothers to help each other.

“If people could come here, they should,” she said. “It’s not the worst thing in the world. If you need help, don’t be scared to ask for help, because I was definitely scared to ask for help. But if I didn’t ask, I wouldn’t be here.”

Shea said the facility is looking for donations of baby monitors, laundry detergent, fabric softener and bleach, as well as clothing for children up to age 4. For more information, go to mommashouse.org.