Program Spotlight: Blessings Across Long Island
Blessings Across Long Island is expanding again! A $50,000 grant from Suffolk County, New York, will help feed an additional 300 children on the weekends starting this fall.
With this growth, Blessings Across Long Island will help feed 1,500 school-aged children on the weekends through its Blessings program during the 2026–27 school year. Expanding the program beyond its initial school district has also encouraged companies across the island to step up as donors and support local kids.
A team of volunteers, led by program coordinators John Ammirati, Lisa Beck, and Gaylani Jewett, ensures that more students are served by Blessings in a Backpack each year. The program has changed since Trisha Ewald (now a Blessings staff member) first read about Blessings in a Backpack in 2013. Trisha started the program in her Longwood School District. That program grew each year—and is now serving 600 students. Two years ago, the program expanded to cover more of Long Island. Although Trisha is now staff support for the program and not involved in the volunteer-led operation, PC John Ammirati says her spirit drives volunteers. “She has been and will always be the heart of our program,” says Ammirati.
Ammirati, a retiree who ran a Real Estate office, started packing with the Longwood program. His background lent perfectly to fundraising, and Ammirati has leveraged those skills to a new level. Realizing companies were looking for team-building experiences, Ammirati began charging companies for packing events. Corporations are paying for the food they pack, covering expenses, and often donating to the Blessings program. The Blessings Across Long Island program inspired this model, which is detailed in the PC toolkit.
After hearing about the Race to Feed initiative, Ammirati duplicated the concept (previously only done by staff-led chapters) on Long Island last fall. Nine teams each paid $2500 to pack in a team competition, earning enough money to pay for all the food being packed, and an additional 3 weeks of Blessings food for the 1200 kids in the Blessings Across Long Island program. Ammirati expects even more teams to sign up for this year’s event.
As the program continues to grow, Blessings Across Long Island is refining its operations to support more children. This year, the community program has reduced the number of events it hosts in order to focus on three key fundraisers and maximize their impact.
Pre-packed bags are also being used for about half of the children served by Blessings Across Long Island. Program Coordinator Lisa Beck shared that the team is working on a thoughtful balance between pre-packed bags and community-packed bags in their original school district, where packing events are a cherished tradition. The youngest students in the district will receive pre-packed bags next year—something Lisa says works especially well for those 4-year-olds.
As a school district employee, Beck sees the benefits of a Blessings program firsthand.
“Some of our children only have the free breakfast and lunch they get at school to eat during the week, because there isn’t food at home. When you are hungry, it is all connected- bullying, your ability to learn—it all snowballs,” says Beck. “It makes my heart happy to see the children so excited about going home with their food—it just makes me want to do more and more”.
And more and more is just what the passionate volunteers on New York’s Long Island have in mind, as they strive to address food insecurity for an estimated 65-thousand kids.