Friday, November 6, 2026
The Long Beach Soup Kitchen recently benefitted from a swell of support from community students during the “Local Kids Who Care” initiative. On Nov. 1, more than a dozen students from Long Beach Middle School and Oceanside High School solicited food donations from patrons in front of Key Food on East Park Avenue and Stop & Shop, also on East Park Avenue.
At Key Food, seventh-graders from Long Beach Middle School — including Vincent Chimienti, Brody Dowler, Billy Munsterman and Cooper Stone — perched outside the doors, asking shoppers to consider donating products from the “needed items” list provided by the soup kitchen. They were joined by Oceanside High School seniors Elaina China, Desmond Deacon and Thomas Klodnizski. Sara Dowler, a health teacher at Oceanside High School, was supervising the volunteers.
The program wasn’t mandated by a school program, club or afterschool activity. The student participation was self-initiated. “It’s just students from the community volunteering for the soup kitchen,” Dowler explained.
Farther down the road, at Stop & Shop, the Long Beach Soup Kitchen was also receiving support from the South Shore Figure Skating Team — a collective of young women from Rockville Centre, Oceanside, Freeport and Bellmore/Merrick high schools, who participate in regional figure skating competitions.
Denise Klodzinski, a Special Education teacher at Oceanside High School, supervised the skating team. “I work with Sara Dowler at the high school. She asked if [the team] was looking for any volunteer experience,” Klodzinski explained. “My son is over at the other site, so I brought my daughter and her team here.”
The day’s food donations overloaded multiple cars with cereal, cooking oil, pasta, broth and more kitchen staples. “We have a food pantry twice a week where people can come and shop,” explained Ron Schoen, community liaison for the kitchen. And they stay by the front window and they say, “That’s Mondays and Thursdays. Monday through Saturday, we give out soup, a main meal, a sandwich.” The Long Beach Soup Kitchen has served the area since 1983 and has provided more than 20,000 meals in 2026 alone.
