6 ways Long Islanders lend a hand

Long Islanders are proving that charity -- on a small scale -- can make a difference.

Some of them use their professional skills for a good cause. Others donate their time, energy - and even their birthdays.

And the six Long Islanders profiled here all agree: The experience of giving back has given them something as well. 

Give-back Sundays
Dr. Steven Mendelsohn wanted to help people during the economic crisis. Instead of making a monetary donation to a local charity, Mendelsohn said, he came up with another idea: Give Back Sundays.

"We sit on millions and millions of dollars of equipment on Sundays doing nothing," said Mendelsohn, a diagnostic radiologist and owner of Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology, which has offices throughout Long Island. "Rather than donating money, why don't we perform the service directly?"

So a year and a half ago the offices began to open one Sunday a month to provide services for free to Long Islanders who are uninsured and have a doctor's referral. Since then about 2,500 patients have undergone MRIs, mammography, CT scans and other diagnostic procedures on Give Back Sundays.

One patient, Lourdes Montes, 55, a Huntington resident and former administrative assistant who has been out of work for two years, had been experiencing pain in both shoulders. She went to a clinic that charges fees on a sliding scale for patients with no insurance, where a doctor told her she would need two magnetic resonance imaging scans.

In April, she received one at Zwanger-Pesiri's Sunday program and the second, also free of charge, three days later during the office's regular business hours.

"It was unbelievable," she said, adding that the staff was especially kind and welcoming. "They make you feel you are the special person coming in, not like they're giving you something. It's amazing, it really is."

Staff members -- from the radiologists to the maintenance crew - donate their time to the Sunday program. Chief technologist Jeanine Santorelli said she had never volunteered for anything before. Now she volunteers nearly every month.

"It was a very fulfilling experience to know I helped someone else," Santorelli said.

Initially, she said, some staffers were reluctant to spend a Sunday doing what they normally do all week.

"It's funny -- once you get somebody to do it, they want to do it again," Santorelli said. "When patients start talking to them about how much they appreciate what you've done, they get hooked." 

Gardening for the hungry
As often as three times a week, 13-year-old Ben Winston and his mother, Jackie Fern, of Setauket, were busy this summer watering seedlings, pulling weeds and picking turnips.

But the largesse from this garden won't benefit them -- at least not directly.

Along with other members of the North Shore Jewish Center in Port Jefferson Station, they have been tending a plot at the Bethel Hobbs Community Farm in Centereach, where dozens of other groups also farm for charity.

The produce -- such as tomatoes, beans, peppers and squash - goes to the St. Paul's Lutheran Church soup kitchen in Port Jefferson Station and the synagogue's own food pantry, the Rebbe's Tish (Rabbi's Table in Yiddish).

Melissa Kurtz, chairwoman of the synagogue's green committee, said the synagogue has had a plot at the farm since June.

"Providing food for our own food pantry is a small part of it," she said. "We're helping more and being part of the community. And helping not just our food pantry, but anyone on Long Island who's hungry."

And Ben, who began the project two weeks after his bar mitzvah, said he hopes to continue gardening well into the fall. He often spends hours in the garden and counts harvesting as his favorite activity.

"I feel great knowing that I can really see the difference I can make, from planting seeds to harvesting," Ben said. "I know the produce is going to people who really need it." 

Domestic violence outreach
Zubeida Lunat always knew she was cut out for helping people. So some years ago when she suspected that some women in her community were silently suffering from domestic violence, she and other women in the Islamic Center of Long Island in Westbury decided to act.

Lunat, of New Hyde Park, and a handful of others created a questionnaire on domestic violence to pass out to members during the mosque's Sunday morning programs. The answers confirmed the women's suspicions.

"We found out almost 70 percent mentioned that they either knew somebody who was suffering or they had suffered themselves," Lunat said. "We thought, OK, now it seems there is a need in this community."

Lunat and the women began the Domestic Harmony Foundation in 1992. Operating out of offices in the mosque, with the leadership's blessing, the foundation counsels South Asian women across Long Island, providing referrals to shelters and giving free legal advice.

Previously, South Asian women would have to go to the city to find an organization run by women like themselves, Lunat said.

"Some of these women from South Asia, they feel more comfortable going to people who speak their own languages, who understand their own culture," she explained.

The organization became an official nonprofit two years ago, but it still operates out of the mosque. And Lunat, who was a teacher in her native India, serves as the organization's treasurer and volunteers 20 hours a week -- mostly counseling distraught women who call the hotline.

Lunat said she has been driven to help others by the tenets of her faith.

"I've been pretty blessed coming to this country. I live in a comfortable home, I don't have anything to worry about," she said. "And then when I see these women . . . when I help them, I thank God every day for whatever I have." 

Yoga for the world
Sunday afternoons at the Absolute Yoga studio in Woodbury usually find yogaphiles in the studio's community class practicing cat stretches and sun salutations.

The instructors are donating their time, and the class is pay-what-you-can. The studio donates the proceeds to various Long Island charities.

Absolute Yoga owner Leslie Luft said the community class began more than two years ago and classes attract five to 20 students - some who are regulars during the week and others who attend only on Sundays.

"Yoga as a philosophy is really a mind-body experience, and when your mind and body are connected . . . you feel like you want to give of yourself. And you want to offer to others," Luft said. "It's giving back because we've been offered so much."

She said the class also appeals to people who may not be able to afford regular classes.

"The people that don't usually come to the studio but do frequent the community class are thrilled to have the class for whatever they can pay," Luft said. "That's a real payback to them. Not only are we giving to charity, we're giving back to the students."

Four times a year the studio designates a charity to receive three months' worth of class proceeds. Among the recipients so far: the Long Island chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society ($626), the Multiple Sclerosis Society ($537) and the Lustgarten Foundation ($370), a pancreatic cancer charity named after a Cablevision executive who died of the disease. (Newsday is owned by Cablevision.)

Cindy Valentine, an instructor at Absolute Yoga, frequently volunteers to teach the community classes.

"I feel like any way to give back is never carving out too much of your own time," said Valentine, who even volunteered to teach over her birthday weekend in August. "It's one thing to take money out of your pocket and donate, but there's another feeling you get when you're taking time out of your day or your family's life to really give back to others." 

Dentistry for Ann
In July, Ann, 28, of Carle Place hopped into the dental chair at Dr. Harold Kopman's Melville office and opened her mouth, displaying two neat rows of bright white teeth.

Four years earlier, Dr. Kopman, a periodontist, agreed to help fix her smile free of charge. He assembled a group of dentists and asked his dental laboratory and supplier to provide materials for free.

Ann - who requested that only her middle name be used -- had spent a year and a half addicted to drugs -- heroin, mostly. She kicked the habit four years ago, but by then her top front teeth had decayed to the gumline.

"They were horrible. They were all cracked and disgusting," Ann recalled. "I couldn't smile because I couldn't stand the look of myself."

She wanted to get a job and take care of her son, now 5, but she said the condition of her teeth held her back.

"I wouldn't open my mouth all the way," she said. "I made sure my lips covered my front teeth. I taught myself to talk without showing it."

That's when she met Barbara Kopman, a family law attorney who had represented Ann's mother. Kopman did something she normally never does: She suggested that Ann talk to Kopman's husband, Harold.

For two years, Kopman and his associates worked on Ann's mouth, and she wound up with implants replacing her front teeth.

The work was finished in 2008, and today Ann is not afraid to smile. She has returned to school to become a drug and alcohol counselor.

"This was the most dramatic thing I've done to change a human life," Dr. Kopman said. "I've saved people's lives by examining them thoroughly and picking up mouth cancers and stuff like that. But this was so dramatic. I guess it made me feel so satisfied." 

Birthday girls donate gifts
When six BFFs from Roslyn were turning 11 earlier this year, all in the span of three months, they decided to have a joint birthday party. But the girls, who have known one another since nursery school, attend different schools, and each has her own circle of friends.

So how to handle gift-giving? "It would be weird to get all six of us presents," Catherine Korren, 11, said.

The girls decided to do something different.

"They came up with an idea - let's not do gifts. Why not raise money for charity instead?" said Catherine's mother, Donna Korren. "There was a hedge for a minute -- 'Gee, wow, we're not going to have any presents.' But that was quickly decided upon: This was cooler."

The girls -- Nicole Hollander, Danielle Sontag, Nicole Brzostovski, Isabella Smith, Amanda Leitman and Catherine -- dubbed their party "Celebrate and Donate."

They had blue and white bracelets made with the slogan, arranged for the party to be held by the pool in Nicole's backyard, and asked guests to bring only one thing: a donation for one of three charities -- North Shore Animal League America, Nothing But Nets, which raises money for mosquito nets for people in Africa, or the Pediatric Kidney Foundation.

The party was held in May. Sixty-five children attended, each with a check in hand.

The girls, who were expecting to raise $500 to $1,000, ended up raising more than $3,500.

"Every time we opened a check, our eyes opened," Catherine said. "We were like, 'Oh my gosh, that's so generous!' "

Korren said the girls sometimes wondered why one check was smaller than another, but she used the opportunity to teach them about charity.

"Some were $18 amounts, and some were $75 amounts," Korren said. "It was a lesson to them: Charity is just whatever it is. It's all fantastic."

Days later, the girls went to the North Shore Animal League America in Port Washington, where they donated a portion of the money.

"We all got presents from our families, and we got some presents from our friends," Catherine said, "but it felt good giving presents to other people."