Youths host Thanksgiving dinner

      "I think this Thanksgiving will be a great way to show off how great our new community is," Mary Kate said. "We're helping out the less fortunate in Island Park, and we'll be a better community for it."
      "I believe you should treat others as you want to be treated," said Cami when asked what she hoped to gain from volunteering at the dinner. "So, to see a smile on someone's face who doesn't always smile, that will make me feel good."
      The church's Youth Group has some 25 core members, fifth-graders to seniors in high school, who take part in activities ranging from clothing drives to feasts to reciting scripture. Each Sunday, Danny sings in the Youth Group's orchestra and choir alongside his violin-playing sister, Mary Kate, and has participated in a fund-raising pancake breakfast and a Mardi Gras event. "We have a lot of fun with it," Danny said about the group. "And everything we do has to do with our faith."
      The Murrays were looking forward to doing their part on Thanksgiving, whether decorating the hall, setting the tables or greeting guests at the door. Some kids helped make invitations and sent them to other congregations as well as to homeless shelters and senior centers.
      Victoria Fernandez, 13, was looking forward to working in the church's kitchen on turkey day. "I think it's a great way to help these people," she said. "I'd like to show some of them how it feels to have a family."
      Other Youth Group members have some experience at such functions. Angela Graci, 10, for one, volunteered with her family at the annual community dinner at St. Anthony's Church in Oceanside last Thanksgiving. "I just liked serving the meals and helping the people out," said Angela, whose mother, Yvonne, was instrumental in making Sacred Heart's first dinner possible.
      While the Youth Group kids and their families donated some of the food they planned to serve on Thursday, Yvonne Graci raised money for the dinner, helped by 26 businesses throughout Island Park, Oceanside and Long Beach. Thanks to her efforts, Sacred Heart received 30 donated turkeys.
      Graci was a member of the Thanksgiving dinner committee, with fellow parents Nick Buffardi, Denise Ruscio, Jo-Ellen Sarnelli, Donna Stykes and Theresa McSpedon, who heads the group.
      Carmel Caracciolo, Sacred Heart's religious education director since 1990, said the church had long wanted to host its own Thanksgiving dinner. "But when we got all of this help," Caracciolo said, pointing to the committee members, "then we knew we could finally do it."
      "We're worried about getting a lot of people," McSpedon admitted. "But then just 15 people might show up, but so be it. ... We look at it like 'Field of Dreams': Cook it and they will come."
      To prepare, the committee consulted with others experienced in similar functions, including St. Anthony's, the Oceanside-Island Park Senior Center and soup kitchens in Long Beach and Freeport.
      Meanwhile, people from St. Crispian's Church in the South Bronx, whose Franciscan priests and sisters work closely with Sacred Heart in aiding the poor in neighborhoods in the Bronx, Harlem and Newark, were planning to attend the dinner.
      Each November, the Youth Group collects food for the Friary's Thanksgiving drive, and about 15 group members head to the Bronx and help unload the boxes of goods from the truck to the church's basement for storage.
      Similarly, each Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Youth Group starts on the Bronx church's annual St. Nicholas Project. The kids receive lists of items to be given to the poor, from toys to men's sweaters, and make individual tags for each item, which they organize and bag.
      In September they help out at San Gennaro's Feast, stocking and preparing food and cleaning up tables, and at each Sunday Mass for the next month they will collect clothes, from coats to footwear.
      Among the group's more faith-oriented activities are World Rosary Day the first Friday in October, when they lead congregants in prayer and the rosary, and their monthly meeting with the Rev. John Tutone, who stresses "faith formation." "They learn that the charity they do flows from their faith," Tutone explained.
      Each January the group participates in Youth 2000, in which some 150 kids 15 and older, from throughout the tri-state area and beyond, spend a weekend together at Sacred Heart dedicated to prayer, renewal and confession.
      Cami Murray explained that the Youth Group is a place where kids can interact on different levels. "It allows you to open up and talk and learn about God," she said, "rather than hanging out on the streets."
      The idea of hosting a Thanksgiving dinner, Tutone said, grew out of the group's discussions about doing something directly for the people in their community. "While there may not be the tremendous need here in Island Park that the Friars have in the city," Tutone said, "the Youth Group nevertheless came up with the idea that maybe there are a lot of people who are alone on Thanksgiving, whether senior citizens or poor people who live in the community, who they could help out."
      Nicole Ruscio, 13, who joined the Youth Group three years ago, made place mats for the Thanksgiving dinner. "I think it's a good thing to help people who don't have anywhere else to go," she said.
      Asked what plans she had for a holiday dinner at home, Denise said, "This is my family's Thanksgiving. My whole family will be spending it here."

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