Oceanside celebrates Community Service

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He is only in 10th grade, and has eight high school students for his board of directors, but the head of C the Difference Cory Cares, Cory Nichols, has shown that it’s not how old you are, it’s how much you care. Cory and his charity have raised thousands of dollars’ worth of food donations for local food banks.

More than 200 people attended the Oceanside Community Service’s annual fundraiser on Oct. 29 to show they care too.

Cory, 50 other youngsters and their families took part in the Halloween for the Hungry food collection, gathering more than 800 items to feed needy families in Oceanside and the surrounding area, and donated them to OCS. The Oceanside High School Honor Society, Rock Can Roll and other groups joined Cory Cares and made donations of their own.

Cory said he had no idea there were hungry people on Long Island until two years ago when he found out about the Oceanside Food Pantry. He was told the pantry feeds 179 families every month, so he sprang into action.

For his bar mitzvah project he decided to give back to the community. His goal was to raise $1,200 to stock the pantry shelves. He reached that goal, but the money kept coming in.

Three years later, he has his own non-profit organization, C the Difference, Cory Cares. Over the summer he delivered over 2,000 pounds of food to five Long Island pantries.