Newsday Charities a McCormick Foundation Fund Announces $50,000 Grant to Long Island Cares, Inc. to Support Mobile School Pantry in Collaboration with Brentwood School District

Newsday Charities, a McCormick Foundation Fund has awarded $50,000 to Long Island Cares to support the organization’s first Mobile School Pantry at the Brentwood Union Free School District. The Mobile School Pantry program works to alleviate child hunger through the provision of food to children and families at eight of the district’s elementary schools.
“We’re very grateful to Newsday and the McCormick Foundation for their continued support of our work,” said Paule T. Pachter, Chief Executive Officer of Long Island Cares, Inc. “Newsday has been a consistent and generous corporate partner of Long Island Cares, Inc.-The Harry Chapin Food Bank, and their most recent grant to support our new School Pantry program with the Brentwood School District will enable us to provide critical support to many children who face the challenges of food insecurity on a daily basis.”
Brentwood is the largest school district on Long Island with over 17,000 students actively registered. Brentwood has 11 elementary schools in which 60% or more of the children are currently enrolled in free or reduced breakfast and lunch.
Dr. Jessica Rosati, Chief Program Officer for Long Island Cares expressed her excitement about the success of this benchmark program. “We are so grateful to Newsday and the McCormick Foundation. With over 100,000 children residing on Long Island who experience food insecurity it becomes imperative for the food bank to respond. It is our hope that we can ease the burden on Long Island children and their families by ensuring their food needs are met.”
During the academic school year 2014-2015, Long Island Cares provided food for 1,230 families including 3,030 children, delivering more than 539,730 meals to the children and their families.  Now in its third year, the program has completed 3 of 10 scheduled distributions for the 2015-2016 year and has already provided food for 774 families including 1,820 children. The program has become a staple in the community, and is on target to surpass the previous number of families that were assisted at the end of 2015.