In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Mineola-based Island Harvest has seen a windfall of corporate donations including a $15,000 grant from Walmart the week before Christmas.
Island Harvest saw its corporate contributions increase 25 in November and December, said Island Harvest spokeswoman Nicole Kowaleski.
The $15,000 Walmart Foundation grant was one of 10 Walmart awarded to non-profit entities around the country on the eighth day of Walmart’s “12 Days of Giving.”
Island Harvest was chosen from 21,877 non-profits posted on Walmart’s Facebook page when the company called for submissions in November. A panel from the Walmart Foundation made the final selections for the grants awards.
“We ended up winning,” Kowaleski said. “We’ve gotten donations from a lot of corporations after the hurricane hit.”
“While natural disasters capture headlines and national attention short-term, the work of recovery and rebuilding is long-term. With these grants, we want to help brighten the holidays for those communities who are still working to rebuild,” said Sylvia Matthews Burwell, president of the Walmart Foundation in a statement.
Based at 199 Second St. in Mineola, Island Harvest collects surplus food that would otherwise goes to waste and delivers it to a network of 570 Long Island-based food pantries, soup kitchens, and other non-profit organization that offer feeding services for those in need, according the not-for-profit’s Web site.
Kowaleski said Walmart was joined in the post-Sandy giving by the New York City-based Robin Hood Foundation, which awarded two grants of $225,000 to Island Harvest for hurricane relief, and Capital One Bank, donated $20,000.
Panera Bread also ran a donation drive at its stores’ cash registers for Island Harvest for three weeks in November and December. Allstate and Blum’s sponsored a Sand Aid hurricane relief concert featuring Long Island bands performing in Patchogue on Nov. 25. Island Harvest also conducted a “food-raising drive” with Stop & Shop, Kowaleski said.
Island Harvest was also among non-profits to receive donations from a money raised at a Nov. 29 concert in the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at the Long Island University Post campus, which featured Jose Feliciano, “Phantom of the Opera” star Ciaran Sheehan and Chazz Palminteri.
The corporate contributions helped meet the rapidly number of people in need of assistance in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Kowaleski said.
“In the past we’re had requests for 40,000 turkeys and this year had double that because of the storm,” she said. “People just didn’t have anything.”
Island Harvest’s post-Sandy mobilization effort was its biggest initiative over the past 20 years, she said.
Kowaleski said Dec. 22 was the first day Island Harvest’s staff took off since it started putting in 20-hour days seven days a week after Hurricane Sandy struck.
“We don’t have an end date to when we’ll stop doing this,” she added.
In a summary of storm-related activities, Island Harvest reported distributing more than two million pounds of food and supplies since the storm struck – enough food to supplement or support more than 1.5 million meals.
Operating with a fleet of 11 trucks, vans and mobile food pantries, Island Harvest has established more than 70 “drop sites” in hard hit neighborhoods where it has 8,750 pounds to 17,500 pounds of food, cleaning supplies, and personal care items.
The Long Island food bank has also established a regularly updated a Hurricane Sandy Resource Guide that includes recovery information on its Web site, islandharvest.org.
