Record Details:

Family-To-Family - 2012 HURRICANE SANDY

Main/General Business Number: 914.391.3220
Website: http://www.family-to-family.org/2012/11/family-to-family-hurricane-sandy-relief-effort/

Management Contact: (hidden)
Management Phone: (hidden)
Other Contacts:(hidden)

Mission: Family-to-Family (F-to-F) is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3), non-profit national hunger relief organization. We are dedicated to connecting, one-to-one, families with “more” to impoverished American families with profoundly less. Our program creates a bridge between communities with enough to share, and some of our country’s poorest areas.

Sponsoring families and individuals are eager to link themselves, over time, to moms, dads and kids living in abject poverty. They share the sentiment of anthropologist Margaret Mead, who once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world”.

Our members give in a variety of ways. Some welcome the concrete responsibility of shopping for, packing, and sending a monthly carton of non-perishable groceries which provide 7 dinner-type meals to the family they “sponsor”. Some shop for and send “monthly drive items” – non-food basic necessities – while contributing a monthly donation to F-to-F, which we use to purchase groceries for 7 dinner-type meals for “their” family. Some simply make the monthly donation for groceries for “their” family.

F-to-F purchases groceries at discounted rates from a constellation of large chain supermarkets and works with the Feeding America network of food banks to provide food for the families we serve. Each receiving family picks up the box packed especially for them from a local community partner, each of whom is affiliated with a local food pantry, outreach organization, school or church.

In an effort to create “possibilities”, F-to-F encourages donors and recipients to connect and communicate when possible and comfortable. We suggest donors reach out to the family we have linked them to with a letter…and often sponsored families write back. We hope that by creating a bond of friendship between families who would otherwise never have had the opportunity to connect, lives will be changed for the better, even if ever so slightly. Currently, F-to-F provides over 12,000 meals per month to over 1,800 struggling moms, dads and kids in 13 states across the U.S.A.

For children eager to make a difference F-to-F has a number of giving programs. Birthdays in a Box, Books For Life, The Breakfast Club, Kids Can! and Best Dressed Babes are all hands-on projects for kids – for at home, in school, and with scout groups or religious groups. These concrete ways to teach children empathy and compassion truly embed the notion of giving into the fabric of our children’s lives.

Volunteers are needed to host sponsoring chapters in their communities, organize local groups and schools to run our Kids Can! Food Drive programs as well as The Breakfast Club Food Drive program. We are also seeking help with grant writing, media relations and public relations. We are a young grassroots organization that has rocketed into national prominence in a very short time. Please help us expand our reach to even more American families in need by joining our community of givers.





This organization provides Temporary or Permanent Service? Temporary

Notes:

How to Sponsor a Displaced Family:

In the coming months, as the hardest-hit areas are rebuilt, more families will return home from temporary housing, and the challenge to re-build their lives will be enormous.

They will be in need of the most basic items: cold weather clothing, sheets, towels, pillows and blankets, dishes, over the counter medications …everything! All basic living essentials will be needed, from new packs of fresh underwear to small household appliances.

The list is long….but here’s what you can do to help:

Using the Family-to-Family one-to-one model, let us connect you and one other donor with a family in need of everyday basic essentials as they try to get back on their feet. In an effort to create community, we’re linking two donors with each hurricane family, both for the benefit of the recipients and to make it a little easier on those of you who have signed up to help.

We’re continuing to gather names of displaced families from grassroots organizers on the ground in the Breezy Point/Far Rockaway/Broad Channel/Staten Island areas. Each family is filling out a questionnaire listing the items they need the most. Most of these families are blue-collar families who were just getting by; consequently, this disaster has put them over the edge financially.

Please know that we have relied on these on-site volunteers in the affected areas to provide us with recommendations of families that are truly in need. It’s important to note that while many families have lost absolutely everything, others have partially flooded homes with less damage but have requested assistance. We aren’t in a position to see first hand the degree of loss each family has suffered. Additionally, some families might have some form of insurance that will cover part of their loss, although few have flood insurance.

Over the next few weeks, (after you sign up with us), we’ll contact you with the name and address of one of these families to help, as well as a copy of the questionnaire they filled out. When you receive this information, we ask you to email or send the family you are sponsoring a note introducing yourself, and during the upcoming critical period, coordinate with your co-sponsor to send what you each can from the list. (If you are communicating with your family through the mail, please send a self-addressed, stamped return envelope so they can easily reply to you.)

Some tips:

Since you will be shipping/posting, keep things light.
DO NOT SEND CASH. If you’d like, send a visa/mastercard gift card, a gas gift card…or as you receive information from your family a gift card to a local Wal-Mart, Kmart etc.
As your family settles in, try and keep communication flowing and help them think through what they might need in the coming weeks or months. Remember, the trauma will be with these families for quite a long time.

Please be aware that while donations made to Family-to-Family are tax deductible, donations sent directly to a family are not deductible.

Go to the site to complete the form to sponsor a family.

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Purchase and Send Badly Needed Items: (on-line is quickest):

Work gloves, face masks
Mops, brooms, shovels, scrub-brushes
Work boots, work pants
Heavy duty garbage bags, buckets
First Aid kits and band-aids
Diapers, baby food, formula & wipes
New bath towels
Toothbrushes & toothpaste
Feminine Products
Cans of soup and can openers
Laundry detergent, Dish soap
Batteries, flashlights

(For your convenience, some of these purchases can be made online at the Family-to-Family Amazon Store or at any other on-line store.)

Please email us at moreinfo @ family-to-family.org to tell us what you’ve sent.

All items can be mailed to:

Tunnels to Towers
Staten Island Relief Center
2271 Hylan Blvd.
Staten Island, N.Y. 10306

Tunnels to Towers
Gerritsen Beach Relief Center
2648 Gerritsen Avenue
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11229

T2T Brooklyn Relief Center
Ikea (Red Hook)
One Beard St.
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11231

T2T Long Beach Relief Center
LB Catholic School
735 W. Broadway
Long Beach, N.Y. 11561

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