Amityville program helps homeless for the holidays

Jadyn Wilcox knows comfort can be found in a box.

So the 17-year-old made sure to fill the shoeboxes to the brim one recent evening as she packed them with necessities and presents for the Blessings in a Box program for the homeless.

“I try to make sure that every gift that I’ve made, whoever gets it gets a lot of stuff,” the Amityville High School senior said while volunteering for the program at the Town of Babylon's Irwin S. Quintyne Community Center in Amityville.

“I was in the same situation as a lot of those kids so I know what it feels like to not have a home for Christmas and know what it’s like to have random strangers think about you and give you gifts," she added.

As recently as May, Wilcox lived in shelters with her mother and four siblings during a hardship period that stretched more than two years. So when she learned of the Amityville nonprofit Keep Your Change’s Blessings in a Box program, she jumped at the chance to help.

This is the fourth year for the program, in which volunteers fill shoeboxes with donated hygiene products, socks, candy and other gifts for adults and children at nine homeless shelters.

Volunteers wrap the boxes in holiday paper and write people's names on the tags. The program culminates with a holiday party and sit-down dinner that children who are tutored by the nonprofit's academic assistance program serve.

This year is the first event since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

“It’s good in two ways,” said Pamela Robinson Allen, who runs Keep Your Change. “The children get to know service and the people who are at a low point in their lives get to be treated with service.”

Allen said the nonprofit is desperate for volunteers and shoebox supplies. When the program started they made 200 boxes. Last year it was 940.

According to Nassau County officials, the number of emergency housing cases increased this year from 682 to 770. In Suffolk County, year-to-date, the number of shelter residents has increased from 1,645 to 1,729.

Bumi Ojo, operating officer for Halo Network Inc., of Amityville, who helps coordinate the Blessings in a Box program with the seven shelters her organization runs, said there has been a 25% to 30% increase in need since the pandemic started.

That increase has been most noticeable since the moratorium on evictions enacted during the pandemic ended early this year, according to the nonprofit official.

“This gives them something to look forward to, an assistance they may have not been expecting, that they know people put a lot of thought into,” Ojo added.

Sean Moore, a 17-year-old Copiague High School senior,  has helped serve the dinner and recently took part in in packing shoeboxes.

He said he felt like he was helping parents who couldn't wrap gifts for their children.

“If I’m able to fill that role for them, the kids at least have something to look forward to,” Moore said. “All kids should have that opportunity.”

By Denise M. Bonilla

denise.bonilla@newsday.comdenisebonilla

Denise Bonilla has worked at Newsday since 2003 and covers the Town of Babylon, including the villages of Lindenhurst and Amityville.