Hillside Food Outreach, ShopRite Team Up for Holiday Drive on Saturday
By Molly Stazzone
Most people are familiar with the saying “it’s better to give than to receive.”
Hillside Food Outreach is a local nonprofit organization that lives up to the saying. It will be holding a food drive this Saturday, Nov. 23, at the Thornwood Town Center ShopRite from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The drive is in time for the holiday season, said Hillside Food Outreach Executive Director and founder Kathleen Purdy. In addition to food, baby supplies and personal hygiene items will also be collected for distribution to Hillside’s clients.
“Hunger doesn’t know the holidays,” Purdy said.
Each month, the organization provides food to more than 2,000 needy individuals throughout Westchester, Putnam and western Connecticut. Hillside is located at 404 Irvington St. in Pleasantville, and has an office in Danbury as well.
Among the items that Hillside Food Outreach will be collecting from the public on Saturday are whole-wheat pastas, brown rice, and sugar-free cereals such as oatmeal shredded wheat and brans. Gluten-free foods are also being accepted.
Formula, diapers, baby food, bottles, baby shampoo, bath and lotions, and diaper-rash ointments are also needed. Personal hygiene items needed are shampoo, hand soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, toilet paper, tissues and deodorant.
For Purdy, the impetus behind starting Hillside Food Outreach traces back to her grandmother. In 1997, Purdy launched the organization after learning that her grandmother had to share food and supplies with neighbors in her building who struggled to subsist on only a Social Security check.
“I started to deliver food to the 15 seniors,” Purdy said. “I needed more people to help me when word got out about what I was doing.”
Purdy appealed to churches to ask people for help. After five years of delivering food and enlisting people to help her, she decided to form Hillside Food Outreach as a nonprofit in 2002.
Hillside schedules annual food drives throughout the region in November and December. In addition, Hillside also has monthly “pack nights.” Schools, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and other community members who want to help can pack bins, which are sent to needy individuals and families, said volunteer Lori Pfeiffer.
Along with delivering groceries, volunteers also spend quality time with isolated clientele.
Purdy and Pfeiffer both mentioned that retired New York Yankee Bernie Williams is an active member of Hillside Food Outreach and has sponsored galas for the organization. The 12th annual gala will be held in Danbury Jan. 18, with Williams as host. He’ll be joined by former teammate and Yankee great Mariano Rivera.
“He heard about that group when I was speaking at one of his churches,” Purdy said of Williams.
To learn more about Hillside Food Outreach, including volunteering for a pack night, to attend the January gala or to make a donation, visit www.hillsidefoodoutreach.org.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.