Hauppauge food bank to hand out Snuggies

Hauppauge food bank Long Island Cares has received a variety of decidedly nonfood donations in the past, including barbecue grills, Christmas trees, even doghouses.

But 20,000 Snuggies was a first.

The agency received the much-advertised blankets with sleeves from manufacturer Allstar Products Group, which is donating 100,000 Snuggies to food banks around New York.

Long Island Cares executive director Paule Pachter, dressed in a blue version that draped down to the floor, stood next to 154 pallets of Snuggies stacked in the agency's warehouse Tuesday, joined by two staffers wearing a pink and a blue Snuggie.

"It was very unusual," Pachter said of the donation. "But when we looked at it, we said, 'Wow, this makes so much sense.' "

The Snuggies are a welcome donation as winter temperatures dip into the 20s and 30s, said Tracie Nielsen, operations director for the Lighthouse Mission in Bellport, which received dozens of pink Snuggies from Long Island Cares.

Nielsen has already picked the recipients of her Snuggies - the group's Saturday morning Kids Club, which serves children from needy homes and shelters.

"A lot of the homes are not properly prepared for the winter," Nielsen said. "A lot of them are struggling to keep up with prices of oil, so the heat is kept very low."

She said some of the children, who are between the ages of 4 and 12, know they're getting Snuggies.

"The kids think they're the coolest thing," Nielsen said. "And they can sleep in them. They can wrap up in them one way or another."

Anne Flynn, vice president of marketing for Allstar Products, said the company was "pleased to join with the food banks . . . to provide some comfort and warmth to New Yorkers in need this winter."

The company reported selling about 25 million of the blankets after an aggressive television advertising campaign that began in 2008.