LI Teachers Use Facebook To Deliver Meals To Health Care Staff

WEST ISLIP, NY — Two West Islip High School teachers recently found a way to give back to their community as well as local hospital workers during the coronavirus pandemic. Joanne Macrelli and Patricia Stack wanted to help the local businesses in the area as well as show their support for the healthcare workers at Good Samaritan Medical Hospital in West Islip, so the duo decided to start a Facebook group, Lemons To Lemonade.

Stack first got the idea after speaking to a former student of hers, who is now working as a nurse. After hearing how bad the situation was, Stack decided she wanted to send her former student lunch as a way to help. Then, she got the idea to send the whole department lunch, too. After that, she and Macrelli got together to expand the idea even further.

"[Macrelli and I] have been teaching in West Islip about 20 years and we wanted to support the community. Being business teachers we understand that the businesses are being affected, so we wanted to help the community itself and help the frontline workers at Good Sam, which is also in West Islip," Stack told Patch.

So using the Facebook group, the women decided to connect with the community to collect donations in order to buy lunch and dinner from local West Islip restaurants to be delivered to both the day and night health care staff at the hospital. The duo set up a Venmo account strictly for donations to be used to order the food for the hospital workers.

Since the start of the group on March 25, Lemons To Lemonade has grown to over 2,000 members and has received over $20,000 in donations in less than a week. The donations helped to deliver almost 1,000 meals for employees in the Good Samaritan B and C Units, Emergency Room and the Security Department. Over 1,000 additional meals are expected to be delivered in the upcoming week from participating restaurants including Farrell’s Bar and Grill, Lion’s Den Bar and Grill, Bang Bang Burritos of West Islip, Our Little Italy, Crispino’s Pizzeria, Cafe Europa, Corks and Taps, and Miller’s Ale House.

"The West Islip Community has been so supportive, but they always are," Stack said. "As a teacher I've seen that over the 20 years that I've worked at West Islip how much they support everybody."

West Islip resident Joe Nicolosi agrees with Stack and has also echoed the sentiment that the community is coming together during this time.

"It's amazing to see everyone come together to help one another during this unprecedented time," he said. "It is unbelievable how these restaurants always go above and beyond for the community. Just another reason why West Islip is such a unique place to live and raise our families."

Stack figured this group was a good way to keep busy while schools remain closed, but she never expected it to grow as big as it has so quickly. Since starting she and Macrelli have been working 12 hours to help people.

"It's crazy, but it's fun...it's crazy fun!" she said. "It turned out to be something very cool."

Since starting the group has been receiving an outpouring of support from the community. Since the group is call "Lemons to Lemonade," they request each order to be delivered with a lemon and the group has been receiving several photos posing with the lemons as a way of thanking them.

The group has received several positive comments in response to their work helping the community for example:

• "Thank you all for your support! The nurses and healthcare workers at Good Samaritan really appreciate your generosity!"
• "Keep up the amazing work because our health care workers need us more than ever!"
• "My daughter works in ER Ultrasound and she was thrilled and amazed to see all the food delivered last night. Thank you for all this group is doing!"

Stack is hoping to keep helping the community as long as possible.

"Our goal is just to do it for as long as we can with whatever money we can, we hope to continue as long as we can," Stack told Patch.