East Meadow Herald 04-08-2021

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VOL. 21 NO. 15

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APRIL 8 - 14, 2021

Island Harvest to increase services With new, bigger building, more help for area food pantries By LAURA LANE llane@liherald.com

Courtesy That’s a Wrap Productions

LIFELONG EAST MEADOW resident Randi Shubin Dresner, president and CEO of Island Harvest Food Bank, kicked off a food distribution sponsored by Nourish New York, a statewide initiative that brought surplus state-produced dairy, meat and produce to food insecure people across Long Island and upstate.

Island Harvest Food Bank, the largest hunger-relief organization on Long Island, purchased an industrial property in Melville in March for $8.1 million. The 43,560-square-foot building, on three acres of property, is twice the size of its for mer headquarters in Hauppauge. “We envision increasing services that will help provide Long Islanders faced with poverty and food insecurity with the resources necessary to lift

them from uncertainty to stability,” Randi Shubin Dresner, Island Harvest’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “By doubling the size of the warehouse and office space, Island Harvest Food Bank can efficiently store more product to deliver to Long Islanders facing food insecurity when needed and provide specialized and targeted services to people across Long Island.” That’s good news for area food pantries. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, many once self-sufficient pantries CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

Protest at correctional center calls for state jail, prison reform By JENNIFER CORR jcorr@liherald.com

Cynthia Manuel, wearing a Release Aging People in Prison T-shirt, stood outside the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow, where a member of her family is currently being held. A coronavirus policy is preventing her from going inside to visit her relative. Inmate visitations were permitted last summer, but were canceled on Nov. 15, around the time that the state and Nassau County began seeing an increase in Covid-19 cases. On March 20, Sheriff James Dzurenda wrote in a public letter that two staff

members and two inmates had tested positive. Dzurenda added that he planned to restore visits and outdoor activities “as soon as it’s safe.” Using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, safety measures are being set up to allow for scheduled attorney visits, Dzurenda stated in his letter, and if those protocols prove successful, the facility will begin limited, scheduled family visitation. “The only way that our prison inmates are getting [Covid] is because it’s being brought in from the streets by [court officers] and anybody else that comes in,” Manuel said. “If they

can go in and give the virus, why can’t we go in and wear masks and protect them? It’s really crazy.” Enough is enough, she added. “We care — everyone should care.” Manuel was among the advocates and family members of inmates gathered in front of the NCCC on March 30 to demand reform inside jails and prisons across the state. Their demands included vaccinating inmates for Covid-19, allowing visitors, establishing consequences for employees who refuse to wear masks and restricting solitary confinement. Two days after the protest,

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the HALT Solitary Confinement Act into law. It restricts the duration of such confinement in state correctional facilities to 15 days, and clearly defines and reduces the number of disciplinary infractions eligible for it. The law also exempts members of vulnerable populations, including the young, elderly, pregnant, dis-

abled and mentally ill, from solitary confinement. The legislation establishes “residential rehabilitation units” to provide inmates with therapeutic and traumainformed programming in a group setting. “The main demand is for all human beings to be treated CONTINUED ON PAGE 5


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