Long Island Cares food bank expands with Nassau center

The new storefront on Sunrise Highway in Freeport has the look of a tidy bodega. But these store shelves don't have price tags.

Instead, the storefront is the latest project of Hauppauge-based food bank Long Island Cares. Inside the new Nassau Service Center, clients will be able to browse shelves full of dinner essentials, baby products, school supplies and children's clothes, while staffers will offer job training and applications for government assistance.

Long Island Cares executive director Paule Pachter said his group decided to expand into Nassau County after realizing that many clients of its First Stop Food Pantry at its warehouse in Hauppauge were coming from as far away as Westbury and Elmont.

"Freeport seemed to be an ideal location," he said.

The new food pantry opens as record numbers of Long Islanders receive food stamps - more than 125,000 in March, compared with 91,000 a year earlier, according to the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

And Long Island welfare caseloads and applications have swelled more than 20 percent in the past year to the highest levels seen since 1999, state figures show.

Pachter said he expected about 4,500 clients a year at the Freeport center.

"This program is here to serve people who never have experienced hunger before," he said.

Staffers at the new location also plan to reach out to local middle and high schools, to train students in how to volunteer at local food pantries, he said.

Thursday, food bank staffers and local officials gathered to celebrate the new center.

"Hunger is a growing problem on Long Island," said Nassau County Social Services Commissioner John Imhof. "Without this type of outreach center and program, I don't know what people would do, but I know what would happen: They would go hungry."

Long Island Cares worked with Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick) and the Village of Freeport to secure the location at the corner of Sunrise Highway and Church Street, and remodeled the space with donations of labor and materials from local unions and businesses.

The Freeport Community Development Agency gave the food bank a grant to cover the first year's rent, and Long Island grocer King Kullen donated the majority of the cereals, pasta, milk and other items.

The center officially opens on Monday.

With Michael Amon