FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM FEBRUARY 25, 2021 • THE QUEENS COURIER 11
Acts of Kindness Send your Acts of Kindness to editorial@qns.com
Richmond Hill coat drive helps keep residents warm
BY GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
In partnership with the New York Mets
Foundation and River Fund New York,
New York Cares hosted an outdoor coat
and food distribution event for seniors
handing out 1,200 coats at the River Fund
New York in Richmond Hill on Feb. 10.
Th e New York Mets Foundation donated
$100,000 to the New York Cares Coat
Drive, which is in its 32nd year. Th e donation
helped the organization purchase
5,000 coats for vulnerable residents across
Queens.
Braving below-freezing temperatures,
seniors started lining up early in the morning,
with the queue stretching down several
blocks from the River Fund New York
location on Leff erts Boulevard.
Raphael Cordero came from Washington
Heights in the Bronx with some friends to
pick up a coat and food. He appreciated
that the organizations came together to
help out New Yorkers in need.
“Right here are nice people. Th ey are
dedicated to us,” Cordero said. “It doesn’t
matter the weather, cold or hot; they are
here.”
Palettes of food and cardboard boxes
fi lled with men and women’s coats of all
sizes were stacked on the sidewalk on
Leff erts Boulevard, documenting the need
for bare essentials. Seniors, some with
canes or walkers,made their way down the
line where a large number of volunteers
waited for them.
Gary Bagley, the executive director of
New York Cares, the largest nonprofi t volunteer
network in New York City, expressed
his gratitude to the Mets Foundation and
generous New Yorkers. Because of their
donations, the organization was able to
purchase 55,000 jackets this year and distribute
them throughout the city with the
help of nonprofi t partners. However, he
said more still needs to be done.
“We are also aware that it is a drop in
the bucket of what needs to be done,” he
said.“We are proud of how much has been
done. We are daunted by how much more
there is to do.”
But Bagley also viewed the event as a
reason to celebrate because of the number
of volunteers who had joined to hand out
1,200 coats and food.
“We are celebrating the fact that volunteers
are showing up, standing out in the
cold, distributing the coats, and making
sure that their fellow New Yorkers have
what they need to get through the coming
months,” he said.
He urged New Yorkers to keep up their
energy despite pandemic fatigue and said,
“We need to keep up our energy so that
the reopening of New York City won’t just
get us back to normal, which wasn’t good
enough.But that it will get us back to better
than we were before this.”
Evelyn Jackson, who has been a volunteer
with New York Cares for about a year,
normally volunteers at food kitchens in
Manhattan. Today, the Queens resident
decided to help out her neighborhood and
praised New York Cares for making it easy
for people to sign up. She encouraged New
Yorkers to lend their time to a good cause.
“Volunteering and helping other people
makes you feel good. It might seem like
this can be hard, but this actually helps,”
she said. “Psychologically, it helps you to
know that people need you and you are
able to give. Just having that human interaction
and connection which is so important,
now more than ever.”
Alyssa DeFranco, a Cohen Foundation
team member and representative for the
Mets, considered the coat drive an excellent
opportunity for the Mets to give back
to the community and show the Cohen
Foundation’s longtime support of River
Fund.
“Th ey deserve the support not only when
it’s cold, not just during the pandemic, but
all year round,” she said.
Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
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