Category: Hurricane Sandy

Goodfella's gives back

11/17/2014

Goodfella's Hylan Blvd Staten Island

The initiative of young workers at the restaurant led to Islanders coming together to aid a community in need
By ANDREW SCUDERA GOODFELLA'S OWNER
Andrew Scudera, one of the owners of Goodfella's Brick Oven Pizza on Hylan Boulevard in Dongan Hills, proudly wrote to the Advance about the "incredible work" that high school and college students on his staff were doing to bring holiday cheer to neighborhood residents hard hit by Hurricane Sandy. Below are excerpts from his letter.
DONGAN HILLS —Throughout the work day, they talked to our cus-tomers and heard their stories, of how they have lost so much and their worries for what the fu-ture holds, Table after table, and story after story, they heard people wondering how they were going to give their kids a happy holiday after having lost their homes and belong-ings. It gave my staff a feeling of wanting to do something positive for the community. It started with the idea of a Toy Drive, but has become something bigger. Nicole Piraino, our 23-year-old waitress, took action right away and is the ringleader for the toy drive. She contacted some of the local schools, and sent out a notice inform-ing the students' families that we were hosting a toy drive for the victims of the hurricane. Within 24 hours of the notice, calls began flood-ing in — not only from families in need, but from people who wanted to do-nate toys and their time to the drive. 'GIVING TREE' Nicole had the great idea to make

a "Giving Tree" and had a holiday tree donated by a gener-ous customer. She then began to orga-nize all the information from the families in need, collecting name, phone number, address, the ages of children, and what they wanted for Christmas. Nicole's idea was to make snowmen orna-ments out of oak tag and list each child's name, age, and gift wishes. The snowmen were hung on the tree for cus-
tomers to take and pur-chase the gifts. Each child listed four to five things they wanted, and some of them asked not for toys but much-needed cloth-ing. We hung up the first is snowmen on a Monday morning. By closing time, all of them were taken. As the emails and calls came in for children in need, more snowmen were created and hung on the tree. And, by the end of each night, the snowmen were gone. After a few days, peo-ple were returning to the restaurant with the snow-man they had taken and bags full of their gifts. Our good friend Sean Conaghan from ValPack donated a flyer and sent it out Islandwide to help get the word out. People have been dropping off gifts all week, some promising toys by the truckload they had collected for their own toy drives but did not know how to dis-tribute. Others have been call-ing to help wrap gifts be-cause they had been af-fected by the storm, could not help out by purchasing gifts, so they wanted to donate their time. Within the next few days we will go from col-lection and wrapping to distributing. We have staff members as well as volunteers who will be delivering these holiday presents door-to-door. Over so specific families will have their individual wishes fulfilled.
FULFILLMENT I cannot begin to ex-plain the feeling of pride, happiness, and gratitude I have for this community and for my staff. To see a group of young adults take charge and make a change in so many lives this holiday season is something very special. To see our customers jump in and adopt a child s holiday wish is in-credible. And to see people who were affected by Sandy come to Goodfella's, sit at a table, and wrap presents for hours is something that I will never forget.