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Church pantry forced to rely on retailers mornings on a regular basis to serve people they don’t really know.” hanks to supply chain Hope for Long Island Food issues and the war in Pantry, as it is officially known, Ukraine, among other provides essential foods for factors, Americans every- families in need in the Oyster where are struggling to put food Bay area. Each family is given a on the table. For the North Shore bag of cold items, like milk, Community Church food pantry, eggs, cheese and meats like the issue has chicken or become all too ground beef, as apparent. well as a bag of The church’s canned goods, senior pastor, the including macaRev. Dr. John roni and cheese, Yenchko, has vegetables and been working rice. A “client’s with the pantry choice” system since 2002. It has allows people to been amazing to use a menu to see it grow, select the items Yenchko said, and DARIA LAMB they need most. inspiring how On average, Manager, North Shore many people give the pantry serves Community Church their time to help. 30 to 40 families pantry “Right from each week, the the beginning, majority of them our parish has always put in its from Oyster Bay, East Norwich budget a significant amount of and Bayville. Roughly 200 famimoney for the food pantry,” lies rely on the pantry yearYenchko said. The facility has round. been open every Saturday from In turn, the pantry depends 9 to 10 a.m. since 2000. “Over on 12 to 24 volunteers and prothe years we’ve grown from one duce from two food banks — refrigerator, to two, to three,” Long Island Cares and Island he said. “And it’s been just so Harvest. It has made use of impressive that so many people $27,000 in grants from the federwill give up their Saturday CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
By WILL SHEELINE wsheeline@liherald.com
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Courtesy rallyhope.com
DANTE MARTORELLA, SHOWN here with his nurse, celebrated his 21st birthday with a case of Corona in the hospital with his family.
O.B. High School graduate battling rare form of cancer
Forced to go out of network; bills have ballooned By WILL SHEELINE wsheeline@liherald.com
Rhabdomyosarcoma is a term few people know, and even fewer can pronounce. But for the Martorella family of Oyster Bay, the word has become all too familiar. Tricia and Damien Martorella’s oldest child and only son, Dante, 21, a graduate of Oyster Bay High School, was diagnosed with the disorder, a rare cancer that forms in soft tissue, last August. It affects skeletal muscle tissue
and sometimes hollow organs, such as the bladder or uterus. Dante has been undergoing chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments, primarily at Memorial Sloan Kettering, a cancer treatment and research institution in Manhattan. Theresa Kelly, a nurse at St. Francis Hospital and a close friend of the Martorellas, said that despite all that Dante has had to face, he has remained stalwart in fighting the disease. “He’s a hard worker,” Kelly said. “He CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
or over a whole month, to have no meat or cereal or rice, it’s just unheard of.