Fighting poverty in the region: North Fork Parish Outreach caring for clients

Just before Thanksgiving the North Fork Parish Outreach that assists food insecure families on Shelter Island and the North Fork was finding itself food insecure. There just wasn’t enough food on hand or money to purchase what was needed to fill promised baskets of holiday supplies for clients.

North Fork Parish Outreach (NFPO) Director Maria Fedele, the organization’s only paid staffer, and her volunteer assistant, Catherine Harper, were spending hours every day searching for a way to keep their pledge to their clients. By what seemed like a miracle, at the 11th hour farmers and others started contributing fresh food to fill baskets.

The NFPO works with the Center for Advocacy Support and Transformation (CAST), Long Island Cares and other organizations to help care for those in need in our region. All of these nonprofits struggle to meet the needs of increasing numbers of people seeking help to feed their families, provide warm clothing for the winter, and find gifts for children.

The NFPO may be one of the smaller organizations in the area striving to fill the need, but their services are no less vital. For more than 33 years, NFPO has provided food, clothing, assistance with rent, heating bills and other expenses, gifts for children and adults and respect for those they serve.

The organization assists in employment for some and a helping hand to migrants who are the backbone of the labor force for landscaping, winery and farming operations in the rural East End.

Who are these people who reach out to NFPO?

Some come with stories of jobs lost who never imagined they would need assistance. Some are disabled and either unable to work or limited as to what they can do. Others are elderly, and despite a lifetime of working for and paying for their needs, now find they can’t live on their meager retirement resources.

Still others are homeless. Director Fedele said one woman in her 80s lives out of her vehicle because she has two cats and has not been able to secure housing that would allow her to keep them. They are her longtime companions and besides needing food for herself, she’s able to get pet food from the NFPO pantry.

Many clients give back to the organization, volunteering their services to help stock shelves, purchase needed items with contributions others give to the NFPO or give time in the organization’s Southold Thrift Shop, directly across from Mullen Motors on Route 25.

When clients first arrive at the Greenport center, they undergo interviews to determine their needs in order to find ways to fill them, a warm and welcoming talk to determine how NFPO can help, Ms. Harper, the volunteer, said.

Ms. Fedele has a master’s degree in human resources with a specialization in counseling.

Volunteer Suzanne Fujita, known to Islanders as the pharmacist at Shelter Island Heights Pharmacy until her retirement after 30-plus years, was at the Thrift Shop last week helping to sort contributed clothing that helps to bring some money to the NFPO coffers.

She and Ms. Fedele have been friends for decades, and Fujita said she always promised she would volunteer when she retired. That happened more than two years ago, and now she said “it fills her soul” working for NFPO.

Ms. Harper has been volunteering for 15 years.

The Greenport center of operations with its pantry and other supplies of clothes, gifts and other items is housed in a few classrooms in the no longer functioning school that is the property of St. Agnes Church.

In 1991, the NFPO opened in Cutchogue as a faith-based ministry to care for those in need. Its outreach is not limited to Catholics but for anyone in need of life’s basics. Today it maintains an office in Greenport and the Southold Thrift Shop.

Shelves are filled with nonperishable foods, all carefully checked to ensure no expiration dates have passed. A grant helped purchase a refrigerator to hold fresh vegetables and other food. Toward the back are school supplies that parents’ budgets couldn’t afford — notebooks, pencils and crayons and backpacks.

Another room is filled with toys for children. Shelves are crammed with dolls, sports equipment, games, stuffed animals — all the makings of a Merry Christmas for children who would likely be left out of the celebration were it not for the NFPO. Still another room is filled with bags filled with specific requested items parents want for their children and themselves.

There are warm coats and clothing and even some basic household supplies clients wouldn’t have without NFPO and similar organizations.

The Greenport facility is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. during the winter months.

The Thrift Shop operates weekdays, on Mondays from 1 to 4 p.m.; Tuesdays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Fridays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Those wishing to contribute items to the Thrift Shop may do so on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Contributions need not be new, but must be clean and in good condition, Ms. Fedele said.

Those who wish to support NFPO can send checks made out to the North Fork Parish Outreach at P.O. Box 584, Greenport, N.Y. 11944.