Thousands of pounds of food rescued after nor'easter cancels Long Island events
Thousands of pounds of food from canceled and postponed events across Long Island because of the nor'easter have been donated to Island Harvest help people in need.
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Thousands of pounds of food from canceled and postponed events across Long Island because of the nor'easter have been donated to Island Harvest help people in need.
"There's a lot of damage across the island. But a silver lining here is that we were able to rescue a lot of food and then give that back out to the community," says Gregory May, of Island Harvest Food Bank. "It was about 8,000 pounds of food that we received, which is the rough equivalent to eight large food drives that we would do."
The donations included 700 frozen hamburgers and 350 buns from the Special Olympics, bananas and oranges from the Ironman competition and more than 18,000 potatoes from the Long Island Potato Festival.
Alissa Marti, of Connoisseur Media, which helps host the Long Island Potato Festival, said donating the potatoes was an easy decision.
"I was just so happy that they weren't going to go to waste, going to a good cause and it's the best of a bad situation of having to postpone the event," says Marti.
The donations were quickly distributed to food pantries across Long Island, including ECLI Vibes in Islandia.
"It will be out of this building within the next couple of days," says Jennifer Hernandez, co-founder and executive director of ECLI Vibes. "That means that those folks are not going hungry."
For food pantries, the donations help fill an immediate need.
For event organizers, they provided a way to make sure the food still served a purpose.
"We will make sure that it goes to our neighbors in need," says May.
Island Harvest says anyone whose event is canceled in the future and who would like to donate unused food should contact the organization.
The Long Island Potato Festival has been postponed to Nov. 7 and 8.
There is no word yet on if IronMan triathlon or the Special Olympics will be rescheduled.
