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Students demand better nutrition
Rallying against housing plan
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Vol. 30 No. 11
MARCH 9 - 15, 2023
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Malverne scored the first 15 points of the Nassau County Class B boys’ basketball title game and cruised to victory over Carle Place on March 1 at Hofstra. Story, more photos, Page 10.
‘People’s Food Drive’ eases the burden for those in need By ANDRE SIlVA asilva@liherald.com
Robert Hallam, 61, of north Lynbrook, is organizing the 12th annual People’s Food Drive, in coordination with the Long Island Council of Churches Food Pantry, to help families in need in Nassau County fight food insecurity. The council is collecting monetary and food donations to feed families in nearby Malverne and other South Shore communities, with additional help from an online GoFundMe campaign that began on Feb. 3. “Sometimes people think the needy are homeless and down-
trodden people,” Hallam said. “The people we help are really the ‘working poor’ — they have homes, but they live paycheck to paycheck.” Inflation and rising food costs, he added, are driving more Long Islanders to the food pantry. “Everybody is aware of food prices going through the roof,” Hallam said. “When eggs go from $2.50 to $8 a dozen, it puts an imbalance in their paychecks.” The food drive, he explained, is not designed to sustain families, but rather to give them a chance to temporarily ease the burden created by the cost of food.
Hallam, a member of Malverne’s Community Presbyterian Church, said the drive started as an offshoot of the church’s annual food collection in 2011, when he began placing donation boxes around his community. “In our first year, we collected 984 donated items,” he recalled. “Now we’re in the range of 25,000 donated items each year.” Hallam said that he and his wife, Mary, put out the first donation boxes at his workplace, Nassau Door and Window, in Lynbrook, and at Jeremy’s Ale House, in Freeport. Since then, the initiative has grown dramatically. “It’s not just the church any-
more — it’s not just me and my wife anymore,” Hallam said. “This is how we came up with the name the People’s Food Drive. Everybody involved in the drive is a member, and plays their part to give back to the community.” For a month now, donated food items have been filling up the living and dining rooms of
the Hallams’ Lynbrook home, where they are being divided into boxes that will be transported to the Freeport pantry on Hanse Avenue in three weeks. “My house is completely filled with boxes,” Robert said, “from floor to ceiling.” March 25 is Move the Food Day, when the Hallams and other Continued on page 12