WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES APRIL 9, 2020 17
Moya calls for an emergency relief fund to help
fi nance death arrangements of COVID-19 victims
BY BENJAMIN MANDILE
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
The Ozone Park Residents Block
Association (OZPKRBA) has
partnered with local food
pantries to help distribute food
to those in need as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Food boxes are available to residents
in Howard Beach, Kew Gardens,
Ozone Park, Richmond Hill,
South Ozone Park, Woodhaven and
Cityline Brooklyn. The food, which
is picked up at Queens Borough Hall,
is available to those who “require
food and are financially strained,”
according to Sam Esposito, president
of the OZPKRBA.
Esposito said 200 boxes of food
were available and distributed
Wednesday on a first-come, firstserve
basis. Nearly 100 people
signed up for the first week of food
A paramedic takes a patient from an ambulance to an emergency arrival area at Elmhurst Hospital
on April 6. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
and water distribution, and the last
50 boxes were split between two local
food pantries.
The initiative served the above
communities and also included
residents in Far Rockaway, Middle
Village and Queens Village.
“It was a very, very trying day,”
said Esposito.
Volunteers from the Cityline
Ozone Park Civilian Patrol (COPCP)
helped distribute food across the
borough.
“Our emotions ran high listening
to all the stories of people, in need,”
Esposito wrote in a Facebook post
about the day. “Listening to their
plights and how scared everyone is.
It was a roller coaster of tears and
sadness all day. But we all rose to
the occasion and did our jobs.”
The efforts made extend beyond
the OZPKRBA and COPCP, with additional
help provided by the Cityline
Eldert Lane Block Association, the
Ozone Park Kiwanis, the Richmond
Hill South Ozone Park Lions, the
Southwest Queens Rotary Club, the
Jamaica Rotary Club, the OZPKRBA
legal advisor and lawyer, Community
Board 9 and Assemblyman
Mike Miller, who represents the
38th district.
The partnership started March 24
and will run for the next four weeks,
with 400 boxes prepared each day
by FreshDirect for Queens-based
community based organizations.
Esposito requests those in need
to email ozpkrba@aol.com, or for
those without email to reach out
via Facebook Messenger to give
the group your name, address and
phone number. If neither of these
methods are feasible, those needing
food can call 641-0405.
“We need to reach as many people
as we can to get the food that is desperately
needed,” said Esposito.
For those in need of assistance
who do not meet the criteria for
this initiative, OZPKRBA is coordinating
grocery shopping for the
community so people do not need
to leave home.
The group does not want people
outside and said they will pick up
lists for shopping and COPCP will
conduct the shopping. The group
has been out in the community in an
effort to help during the pandemic
for the last two weeks but says it has
not been able to reach the amount of
people it has wanted to.
Facebook page Ozone Park Voice
is the most efficient way for the
community to get information in
real time, according to an OZPKRBA
representative.
It has now opened its page to
all residents and businesses in
Cityline Brooklyn, Howard Beach,
Kew Gardens, Ozone Park, Richmond
Hill, South Ozone Park and
Woodhaven.
ACTS OF KINDNESS
BY BILL PARRY
BPARRY@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
As a lifelong resident of Corona, Councilman
Francisco Moya has watched as his
neighborhood has been ravaged by the
coronavirus, along with Jackson Heights, East
Elmhurst and LeFrak City which he currently
represents.
Now, Moya is calling for the immediate creation
of an emergency relief fund to help low-income
families whose loved ones have died from COVID-
19 make death arrangements.
“One of the most heartbreaking issues that
constituents are calling me about is what to do
when their loved one dies suddenly and unexpectedly
from COVID-19 and they don’t have the
financial resources to make arrangements,” Moya
said. “These families have two options: burial or
cremation. For families that can’t afford the $925
cremation expense, let alone the cost of burial,
where can they turn? We need a government solution.
I’m calling on the city to immediately create
an emergency relief fund to help families cover
the arrangements of all New Yorkers, regardless
of immigration status, who die from COVID-19.”
Moya has spent much of the coronavirus
emergency resupplying Elmhurst Hospital with
personal protection equipment. He is the former
director of Business Development at the overwhelmed
facility.
“When we say ‘we’re all in this together,’ we
mean it,” Moya said. “That means not abandoning
our friends, neighbors and fellow New Yorkers in
their time of grief and need.”
The de Blasio administration was busy
debunking reports that the city would use park
space for temporary burials of COVOD-19 victims
and morgues and funeral homes are currently
at capacity. Councilman Mark Levine, the chair
of the Health Committee, sparked the reporting
tweeting that temporary internment in parks for
caskets 10 in a row would be dignified.
‘We are NOT currently planning to use parks as
a burial ground,” de Blasio Press Secretary Freddi
Goldstein clarified in a tweet. “We are exploring
using Hart Island for temporary burials if the
need grows.”
For more than 150 years, Hart Island has served
as a Potter’s Field where more than a million
indigent New Yorkers and victims of the AIDS
epidemic were buried. It lies in the western Long
Island Sound off the coast of the Bronx just east
of City Island.
Community groups team up to distribute food to those in need
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