Village workers help the needy

Valley Stream employees hit the streets last Saturday morning, collecting food for a pair of local outreach centers. Residents were asked to leave donations of non-perishable items in front of their home to help their neighbors in need.

Robert Pupke, a shop steward in the sanitation department, organized the food drive which was held for the second time. Pupke said the village employees also collected food in the spring and received enough to fill at least 10 shopping carts. “We’re going to be close to that,” he said, noting that donations are still trickling in this week with collection bins set up at Village Hall, the library and Hendrickson Park.

Donations were given to the pantries at Holy Name of Mary and Blessed Sacrament churches.

Judy Miccio, director of parish outreach at Blessed Sacrament, said they are serving close to 100 families now so the food from the village employees was welcome. “Any donation is helpful at this point,” Miccio said. “As soon as it gets on to the shelves, it goes right back out.”

Myra Dellacroce, a volunteer with the Holy Name of Mary food pantry, worked on Saturday to receive the donations from the village employees. “They brought a nice amount of food,” she said. “It helped fill up the shelves.”

Dellacroce said their outreach center is helping about 90 needy families right and supplies were getting low, so they are very thankful for these recent donations.

Lorraine Werbeck, a supervisor in the parks department, was one of the employees who went out collecting food over the weekend. She brought along her 12-year-old son, Luke Scoggins. “He’s doing this because I think it’s a good thing for kids to be involved in charitable work,” Werbeck said. “You’ve got to teach your kids to care about others.”

The food drive was held by Local 342 of the L.I. Public Service Employees Union, the Village of Valley Stream employees. Werbeck said she was happy to volunteer her time when the union asked for drivers.

She was paired up with union representative and parks employee Eric Argento. He also brought his child along, 7 1/2-year-old Alexa.

Argento said he was younger, his family didn’t have a lot of money and needed the services of local outreach centers. That is why he wanted to donate his time to help others. He hopes their efforts can brighten the holidays for local families. “The food pantries are normally low, so that’s the best time for us to go out,” Argento said.

Pupke said that the union plans to continue doing the food drive every fall. He said should the unemployment rate still be high in the spring, they will probably collect donations then, too.

For future drives, Pupke said they do need to advertise the event a little more and make it clear where residents can leave donations. “It’s our first year doing it so we have to find better ways of publicizing it,” he said.

Pupke noted that he is glad the village employees were able to make a difference in their community. “When we went down to the food banks, they were ecstatic that we brought stuff,” he said, “because they said the need is so great.”