Sea Cliff’s Daniel Gale helps fight food insecurity

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As inflation continues to plague the United States, food pantries and food banks all over the country, including on Long Island, are struggling to help families put dinner on the table. Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty Office in Sea Cliff is working with the Glen Cove-based food pantry NOSH to help alleviate the burden by operating a donation box, collecting all kinds of non-perishables from canned chicken to peanut butter.
For the last several months, food pantries have faced intermittent shortages of essential foodstuffs, particularly meats and other high-protein foods. And although the price of gasoline dropped in July, the cost of food still rose by a further 1 percent. While this may sound like a small change, this still leaves the price of groceries roughly 13 percent higher than it was in July of last year.
This change puts increasing pressure on small food banks like Glen Cove’s NOSH, a nonprofit organization which delivers food directly to families in need. Founded in March of 2020 to help families struggling financially during the coronavirus pandemic, NOSH currently provided food for over 500 families in the North Shore area every week throughout the height of the Covid crisis.
With the pandemic receding, NOSH is now serving 220 families. According to one of its board members, Renee Swanson, it is paradoxically now even harder for some families to put food on the table, as inflation is forcing people to choose between groceries and other essential payments like rent.
“Unfortunately, people still need food right now, and with inflation the way it is they still can’t afford what it takes to feed a family,” Swanson explained. “They have to make hard choices, like do you pay the rent or do you feed your family.”

To take some of the burden off NOSH, they’ve partnered with Sea Cliff’s Daniel Gale branch to run a donation box at the real estate agency’s office. Thanks to Daniel Gale’s central location in the village, it is hoped that this will provide residents an easy and accessible location to drop essential foodstuffs off, with the knowledge that the groceries will be taken directly to NOSH and subsequently to those in need.
Mary Ellen Cuomo, one of Daniel Gale’s real estate agents, has been a driver for NOSH since the spring of 2020, delivering food to needy families twice a week. Daniel Gale kept donation boxes out for NOSH before, she said. The donation boxes provide an opportunity for residents to serve the community in which many of them live and work.
“They have asked me to before and we’ve done collections at our Sea Cliff office before,” Cuomo said. “Everybody is usually very generous when they drop off food and some of the agents have always contributed. So, they asked me again this summer because they were running low on food.”
The list of foods that NOSH is requesting for the donation box consists of largely non-perishable essential goods. They accept everything from carbohydrates like rice and pasta to vegetables and canned beans and meats like canned tuna and canned chicken, which are requested.
While NOSH tries to provide fresh produce when it can, with the non-refrigerated donation box Swanson pointed out it makes far more sense to rely on canned non-perishables. That way even if the food is left in the donation box for a few days it won’t go to waste before being moved to NOSH’s current facility and subsequently distributed to families in need.
Abbey Hunt, the marketing and technology coordinator at Daniel Gale in Sea Cliff, explained that the donation box was a great opportunity for both the real estate agency and the community to help fight food insecurity at the local level. As the person who oversees the donation box while it’s at the office, she says it’s been great to see how generous the village’s residents have been.
“There is a real food shortage right now, so we’re trying to get local people to contribute a little more,” Hunt explained. “We don’t even have an end date right now. We’re just trying to help them for as long as they need it.”
To donate food head to Daniel Gale’s Sea Cliff office at 265 Sea Cliff Avenue in the village or go to NOSH’s Facebook page to learn more about how to help.