Personal Care Items Donated To LI Cares By 100 Women Of Huntington

HUNTINGTON, NY — The 100 Women of Huntington donated personal care items to Long Island Cares' Huntington Station satellite. The group collected for roughly a month.

The items will be dispersed throughout Huntington and Northport, said Sara Siddiqui, a member of the 100 Women of Huntington.

Eileen Kelly-Gorman, the leader of the group that ran the donation campaign for the 100 Women of Huntington, wrote in a letter to Long Island Cares that the women gathered with their children to sort the donations.

"We wanted our kids to understand what we were doing and the importance of helping others," Kelly-Gorman wrote.

They helped their mothers pack and label toiletry bags of soap, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant and more, for men, women and children, she said. They made Ziploc 'blessing bags' for teen girls. The group sorted everything else by product type and placed them in labeled boxes.

In the end, more than 5,000 feminine hygiene products were collected for women in the community and hundreds of other toiletries for families in need.

Personal care items are often overlooked by donors looking to help the food-insecure population, said Harrison Smith, manager of the Huntington Station pantry. Smith said donors often do not realize that Long Island Cares offers personal care items.

"When people think of a food pantry, that’s all that comes to mind – food," Smith told Patch. "The truth is that everyone needs items like toilet paper, hand soap, body wash, toothbrushes and toothpaste, etc. Personal care items can get expensive, especially for those facing food insecurity, so it is important for Long Island Cares to be able to offer those types of items so our clients can save as much as possible."

Every few months, the 100 Women of Huntington vote for one 5013c charitable organization out of three that are presented at a meeting. Long Island Cares was nominated at the last meeting but did not win. Siddiqui, who is on the Long Island Cares board, nominated it.

Idalia Boczec also spoke at the meeting as Siddiqui's guest.

"She shared some very impactful statements about the people that the Huntington Station Humanitarian Center helps," Siddiqui said. "She made all of us aware that there sometimes are not enough hygiene items like shampoo, soap, detergent, or toilet paper to give away to those that come to the center."

The 100 Women of Huntington led a separate drive to help Long Island Cares.

Kelly-Gorman said Siddiqui and Boczek spoke about period poverty and how challenging it can be for LI Cares to support women and girls in the community with these needs because of grant restrictions.

"Our team within the 100 Women organization was so moved by their presentation that we decided to do a collection," Kelly-Gorman said.

For two weeks, the participants contacted friends and spread the word on social media.

One member, Alessandra Hall, who is passionate about living a holistic, non-toxic lifestyle, researched and found Aunt Flo, an organic company that sells bulk feminine hygiene products and is committed to ending period poverty, Kelly-Gorman said. Hall gathered a group of friends and purchased more than 1,500 organic tampons and pads. Other members from the 100 Women group started taking collections, too.

"Packages started showing up from women we had never even met. It was remarkable," Kelly-Gorman said.

Siddiqui thanked the organizers of the hygiene drive, Eileen Kelly Gorman and Nicole Tamoro, for raising awareness of the need for personal care items in food banks.

"The need for resources has increased over the last few years and I am so happy to see such support for the community in Huntington," Siddiqui said.

The team members included Barbara Bolen, Lynn Kay, Monica Zenyuh, Tiffany Asadourian, Maureen Galvin Dwyer, Alessandra Hall, Leslie Bredes, Christine Ruggeri, Carol Gomez, Joanne Kountourakis, Eileen Gorman, Nicole Tamaro, Molly Feeney Wood, Katie Vaccaro, Lauren Kearon, Lorraine Dunkel, Sara Abbass and Jenna Powers.

Patch has partnered with Feeding America since 2020 to help raise awareness in our local communities of hunger, a persistent national problem exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Feeding America, which supports 200 food banks and 60,000 local meals programs across the country, estimates that nearly 34 million people, including 9 million children — about 1 in 6 Americans — are living with food insecurity. This is a Patch social good project; Feeding America receives 100 percent of donations. Find out how you can donate in your community or find a food pantry near you.