Monday, May 19, 2025
Rescuing Families, a Franklin Square-based nonprofit, hosted a pottery night fundraiser on March 12, during which attendees hand-built and painted their own gnomes to take home.
The event was hosted to raise funds toward home renovations for a family in Valley Stream that has a disabled father and son, and whose mother is their sole caregiver.
“It’s definitely a good thing that they’ll have something to take home and look at and remember they did this at the Rescuing Families charity event,” Linda Lamberta, volunteer and board member for Rescuing Families, said of the attendees.
Local potter Rachele Leone, who has previously been a vendor at Rescuing Families charity fundraisers, led pottery night. She met the non-profit’s founder, Gina Centauro, who is also an artist, at their Valley Stream moms group.
“I think it’s an amazing organization. Amazing,” Leone said. “They do a lot of good for a lot of people that need it.”
Leone taught attendees the “pinching method” to build the gnomes out of clay, later showing them how to glaze the gnomes in many different colors.
After the event, she brought the pieces back to her studio, The Pottery Workshop located in Lynbrook, to fire them in the kiln. Leone said the gnomes are a celebration of spring.
When they’re ready, she’ll bring them back to the Rescuing Families thrift store and warehouse, which the nonprofit moved into seven months ago. Centauro said the new building makes it easier for visitors to locate where to donate, and for people to come in from the nearby street and discover them.
“We wound up with so many repeat customers, which to me is incredible,” Centauro said. “We know what they buy so we make sure we have that kind of stuff out for them. It’s really cool.”
Attendees paid a flat fee to attend pottery night, but all of them either bought things in the thrift store for a discount or donated a little extra.
Centauro said the donations they received were great. She said her goal is to get new people in their warehouse, which events like pottery night help do. Getting the word out about the charity, she said, helps them become familiar with their location.
Of the 20 donors Rescuing Families welcomed to the event, and almost half of them were new to the charity.
Funds raised during the event will go toward improving accessibility in the Valley Stream family’s home. The charity’s team has already visited the location to shore up their dangerous ramp and improve the home.
“We’ve done some landscaping for them to just cheer them up,” Centauro said.
The home needs a complete renovation, however. Before getting help from Rescuing Families, the Valley Stream family enlisted the help of a contractor, who opened up walls and ceilings and left the house in complete disarray.
Brian Barry, one of the event’s attendees, said he has been donating to Rescuing Families for five years. He explained how the charity donated $3,000 to him a few years ago after his handicap chairlift became inundated by water in East Rockaway after a storm. As a stroke survivor, he greatly appreciates Rescuing Families’ donation.
“They really have gone above and beyond to help a lot of people in the community that are disabled or elderly and don’t have the financial means,” Barry said.
Another attendee, Donna Ferrara, said she brings her son’s girlfriend and friend to the thrift store to shop together frequently. She has also attended Rescuing Families’ group psychic reading.
“The people that I met here are the loveliest people and they do good work,” Ferrara said.
