Long Island Cares, Island Harvest join to provide food to unpaid federal workers; Nassau to give $50G weekly to each organization

Long Island’s two largest emergency food distributors are joining forces to provide food to federal workers whose paychecks have been frozen due to the monthlong government shutdown — and Nassau County has pledged an extra $50,000 a week to each of them to help their overall efforts during the shutdown.

Nassau County announced on Saturday it would ramp up its funding until the shutdown ends to aid in their effort to provide food assistance for Long Islanders. 

On Monday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Island Harvest and Long Island Cares/The Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank will provide fresh produce, proteins and shelf-stable goods to 500 furloughed and unpaid federal employees at Farmingdale State College, according to Long Island Cares CEO Katherine Fritz. Those affected by the Oct. 1 shutdown who wish to attend must register for an appointment online and provide their credentials when they arrive at the campus. Volunteers also will provide participants with information regarding further assistance through the nonprofits’ partnering food pantries.

Monday’s effort will mark the first time Melville-based Island Harvest and Hauppauge-based Long Island Cares have teamed up for an emergency food distribution "to my knowledge," Fritz said.

"We decided that we could help more people if we partnered together," Fritz told Newsday in a telephone interview on Friday. "This is a bit of a historic moment for both of our organizations, but it is much needed. There are so many people who are hurting right now."

The partnership to help federal workers, who "are friends and neighbors," is "a pivotal step in helping the most vulnerable among us as this ongoing crisis continues to cascade," Island Harvest president and CEO Randi Shubin Dresner said in a text message from a spokesperson.

Fritz and Shubin Dresner joined Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in Uniondale on Saturday when the county official declared a "food emergency." The emergency declaration, Blakeman said, allows the county to "expedite" the $50,000 weekly contributions to each organization, which will continue throughout the federal shutdown.

Blakeman said the county already had contracts with the two food banks. The additional $100,000 in weekly spending will be tacked on to that existing funding, and it is coming from a tranche of money the county has available when departments need to fund contracts, according to Nassau County spokesman Chris Boyle.

"We have a contract line already with both organizations. We're just going to supplement that based on how long this crisis continues. Obviously, it's a week-by-week thing," Blakeman said on Saturday.

The partisan battle regarding health care subsidies in Washington has left the roughly 30,000 federal employees on Long Island struggling to put food on the table, Newsday has reported. On Oct. 23, Long Island Cares distributed food to more than 120 federal workers in Hauppauge, 99 of whom "had never been to a food pantry before," according to Fritz.

"That tells me that there are a lot more people who are living paycheck to paycheck than we ever could have expected," the nonprofit CEO said. "We are now seeing people who are just two paychecks [away from crisis]. People are making really tough decisions."

Both organizations feared that as the shutdown stretched beyond Saturday — the day funding expired for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helps feed more than 165,000 Long Islanders — the demand for their assistance would spike, Newsday reported Wednesday.