Giving Tuesday Initiative Offers Food To Hempstead Soup Kitchen

HEMPSTEAD, NY — At a time when many local residents are struggling to keep their families fed due to economic hardships associated with the coronavirus pandemic, the 200 employees at the Nassau Rehabilitation and Nursing Center wanted to make sure to do their part to provide help to those in need.

So as part of a wider Giving Tuesday initiative involving other Excelsior Care Group facilities around Long Island, New York City and New Jersey, employees at the Hempstead-based nursing center delivered 72 bags of non-perishable food to the Mary Brennan Inn Soup Kitchen.

The soup kitchen, located at 100 Madison Avenue, offers assistance to needy Hempstead families. But because of ongoing pandemic-related restrictions, the way that the soup kitchen distributes food has changed, according to Jacob Blobstein, the administrator at Nassau Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.

Employees picked up food locally to contribute to the donation, which was delivered on Tuesday for the soup kitchen to distribute. Each bag included canned goods, bottled water, snacks and other non-perishables that can be used by local families that may be struggling at this time.

After collecting the food, employees from the rehabilitation and nursing center created an assembly line on Tuesday to put the bags together before the delivery was made to the Mary Brennan Inn. The Giving Tuesday effort came less than a week after the local nursing center also contributed to Thanksgiving efforts at a local church and its food drive for needy families, which continued an ongoing mission to give back to the Hempstead community.

“With what’s going on in the world, it’s really, really tough for everybody,” Blobstein told Patch on Thursday. “To be able to help out anybody in need at a time when people unfortunately are losing jobs and when kids are home from school still struggling and when people want to be able to give their kids a little bit of a treat or a snack is something we’re happy to be able to help out with. Thank God, here, we’re still be able to work and keep up and give back any way that we can.

“As hard as things are at a nursing home, we’re happy to be able to contribute back to local people who may not be as fortunate.”