Story by By Miranda Ferrante, longislandpress.com.

Since retiring from his career managing a real estate office, John Ammirati has found a new purpose in giving back.

His involvement with Blessings in a Backpack, a national organization focused on providing weekend food to children, and its local program, Blessings Across Long Island, had an unanticipated start a few years back. Living in a gated community in Middle Island, New York, Ammirati came across a small ad in the neighborhood newsletter. “We feed children on weekends, we’re looking for volunteers. Call Lorraine,” he recalled its saying.

Curious, he called the woman, who invited him to help pack food for local children at the junior high at Longwood. There a group of women were working in an assembly line, packing food.

“I was intrigued and I loved the energy in the room,” he recalled.

Ammirati returned the following week, and he remembers the woman running inventory said the group would not be able to put the macaroni and cheese in that week.

“Looks like we’re going to run out of money,” Ammirati recalls hearing. The person who founded the program began to cry. “That sort of was the torch that was lit. And I didn’t know her from a hole in the wall. I had met her one week ago, but I went up to her and I said, ‘Don’t worry about it. You put the mac-and-cheese in next week. I’ll figure out a way to get it,’” he said. “And that was the beginning of my fundraising.”

Today, Ammirati serves as the fundraising coordinator for Blessings Across Long Island. He called it “the reason I get up in the morning.”

On Long Island there are 65,000 food-insecure children, he said, “that need our help,” adding, “I know we’re making a difference, but it’s so small.”

The organization is seeking corporate sponsorships to fundraise to add up to 500 more children to the program by January 2025. If you’d like to support our Long Island program, please click here to donate. As little as $200 feeds a student on the weekends for one school year.