14 JANUARY 25, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Kiwanis club donates new fridge to food pantry
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
There will be plenty of room to
store more food at a pantry in
Glendale thanks to a generous
donation from members of the local
community.
The pantry inside the offi ce of the
Sacred Heart parish ministries on
84th Street recently received a brandnew
refrigerator courtesy of the
Kiwanis Club of Glendale, as well as
several steel shelves from tool supplier
Grainger Inc. Coupled with Kiwanis
president Kerrie Hansen’s focus on
food pantries during her term, there
should be no shortage of food in 2018
for families in need.
“This is the fi rst year that in mid-January
I’m not concerned,” said Nancy
Baer, a pastoral associate for the parish
who runs the pantry. “There’s a lot of
community support, and the church
is really helping, so we’re in very good
shape.”
Every year, the Glendale Kiwanis
elects a new president who is tasked
with choosing a specifi c emphasis for
the club’s charitable work. Hansen
said that she had already been donating
to food pantries in the area and it
felt right to have the club do even more
for them. Since Hansen took offi ce in
October 2017, the Kiwanians have
held a food drive at the Stop N Shop
on Myrtle Avenue on the fi rst Saturday
of every month and donated the
collection to a variety of local pantries
and organizations.
Local residents and members of the Glendale Kiwanis at the Sacred Heart food pantry. where they donated a
new refrigerator and shelving units.
When the Glendale Kiwanis gave a
donation of turkeys to the pantry at
Sacred Heart before Thanksgiving last
year, that’s when Hansen realized the
club could do something extra for the
parish, she said. Hansen remembers
trying to stuff all the turkeys into the
pantry’s only freezer and not having
enough shelving space for the excess
of donations that come during the holidays.
They provided Thanksgiving
meals to 120 families, Hansen said.
The Kiwanians were able to raise
enough money to buy the parish an
new refrigerator/freezer, and Hansen
reached out to her friend Mike Williamson
for advice on what shelving
units to order. Williamson, a branch
network manager for Grainger, took
it a step further.
“I didn’t realize that he was willing to
reach out to his company and ask if they
would donate,” Hansen said. “That was
just a bonus. That was significant funding.”
Complete with big red bows that Hansen
made herself, the Glendale Kiwanis
gift ed the shelves and refrigerator to
Baer along with the collection from
their January food drive. Baer said that
the Kiwanis “have really made this their
project,” but also acknowledged the importance
of donations from the church,
the Knights of Columbus, UNICO, the
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Senator Joe
Addabbo and Assemblyman Mike Miller.
“I’ve had other jobs where you don’t
always see a result right away, and that’s
not this,” Baer said. “I can see it right away
that we’ve made a diff erence and it’s needed,
so it’s good that we have the support.”
Photo by Ryan Kelley/QNS
When asked about what is most
rewarding about giving to families
in need, Hansen brought back fond
memories from the holiday season.
“Handing those turkeys out and everybody
being so full of smiles, that’s
what makes it worthwhile,” Hansen
said. “They don’t feel that we’re thinking
anything less of them, they’re just
thinking we’re helping them, and
that’s what you want. You want them
to be feeling like there are people that
have their back.”
The food pantry at the Sacred
Heart offi ce of parish ministries is
open Monday to Thursday from 9 a.m.
to 4 p.m. and serves anyone who lives
in Glendale and has food stamps or
can prove they have applied for food
stamps.
Federal tax bill helps wealthy residents the most
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
With a new federal tax law
taking eff ect in 2018, one
local lawmaker wants to be
sure that Queens residents, and all
New Yorkers, understand how they
might be aff ected.
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez,
whose 7th Congressional District
covers a sliver of Ridgewood, held a
public meeting on Jan. 13 and invited
local fi nancial experts to help her explain
the tax legislation and answer
questions from concerned residents.
The main takeaway from their
analysis of the tax law: the wealthiest
of all New Yorkers are likely to
benefi t the most.
“This was not about fueling
economic growth or creating jobs,”
Velazquez said at the meeting. “It
was not about tax reform that would
have made life a little bit easier for
a working single mom. It was about
rewarding the wealthy and big corporations
– their campaign donors – at
the expense of everyone else.”
The other members of the panel
included Charles Khan, organizing
director at the Strong Economy for
All Coalition; Mark Hannay, director
of Metro New York Health Care for
All; Jonas Shaende, senior budget
and policy analyst with Fiscal Policy
Institute; Pamela Capalad, a certifi ed
financial planner and accredited
fi nancial counselor; and Jaqueline
Gilbert, RN, BSN and NYS Nursing
Association board member.
In general, the panelists explained
that the new bill will give everyone a
tax cut at fi rst, but the numbers will
change over the next several years.
In 2019 it is projected that the poorest
20 percent of Americans will receive
a 0.7 percent tax cut, while the richest
one percent will receive a 2.7 percent
tax cut, according to the Institute on
Taxation and Economic Policy.
By 2027 those numbers are expected
to fl ip for the poorest 20 percent, who
will see a 1.1 percent tax increase. The
wealthiest 1 percent, on the other hand,
will still see a tax cut of 0.3 percent.
In New York specifically, the
poorest 20 percent would see a $60
increase in taxes on average in 2027,
while the wealthiest 1 percent would
see an average of $18,930 in tax cuts.
Meanwhile, Americans in the top
0.01 percent, the richest of the rich,
would see an average of $148,260 in
tax cuts in 2027.
“My friends, this tax plan takes the
concept of fairness and throws it out
the window,” Velazquez said at the
meeting.
In Queens, the median income is
approximately $60,000, and by 2027
every income group below $75,000
will see a tax increase. The number
of Queens residents living in poverty
is about 13 percent of the population,
however, which is lower than the national
average. But plenty of Queens
residents will benefi t from the tax
plan, as 27 percent of the population
makes more than $100,000 annually.
The tax bill also repeals the
Affordable Care Act’s individual
mandate that requires people to get
health insurance or pay a penalty.
This would generate an estimated
$53 billion by 2027 that would help
pay for large corporate tax cuts, according
to the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities.
On Wednesday, one day aft er delivering
his New York State budget
address, Governor Andrew Cuomo
released a statement about the address
and condemned the federal
tax plan.
“The federal tax plan is a devastating
and targeted attack on New
Yorkers that threatens the economic
competitiveness of our state,” he said
in the statement. “I will not stand by
as partisan politics in Washington
seeks to threaten the people of this
state.”
