Students at Carrie Palmer Weber Middle School got a taste of a new program called “Food to Feed” on Thursday. The program is part of The Town of North Hempstead’s School Recycling Partnership, in conjunction with Rock and Wrap It Up!, a Cedarhurst-based non-profit organization aiming to fight poverty.  

As students rushed into the cafeteria with lunch bags in hand morning, they were met by school and elected officials, along with special guests. Among them: representatives from the New York Mets and New York Giants. The presence of a camera crew and photographers added to the excitement.

“Oh my God, are we going to be on TV?” one student shouted.

Instead she and the other middle schoolers were in for a lesson in how to help distribute healthy snacks to after school programs, local community centers, shelters, pantries or soup kitchens throughout town.  

“We are going to start a new program partnering with the Town, just like we did with recycling and it’s up to all of you to make this work because any food that we don’t use is going to go to people who need to have food to eat,” Superintendent Dr. Geoffrey Gordon told students.

Special guests included North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman, Councilman Fred Pollack, Nassau County Legis. Wayne Wink and Syd Mandelbaum, CEO and founder of Rock and Wrap it Up! But the kids were most excited about the appearance of Mr. Met from the New York Mets baseball team.

Meanwhile, officials gave students some background on this new initiative.

“We came up with the idea of taking this wonderful program and partnering with our schools because we have a recycling program with 34,000 students participating every year, including everybody from the Port Washington School District,” Kaiman said. “We came up with the idea that we could create our own program called ‘Food to Feed’ for those in need.”

The program allows students to collect all non-perishable items and recycle them in designated bins in the cafeteria, which will then be distributed to Twin Pines Co-op and Thrift Shop.  

“You don’t know how many people Edna Turner [of Twin Pines Co-op and Thrift Shop] feeds in this town,” Pollack said. “It’s amazing how many people rely on her, and now how many people are going to rely on you to help.”

One participating student who shined above the rest was Eric Fishbin, an eighth-grader who helped organize a program called ‘Snack Wrap,’ to help eliminate hunger, with the help of his mother Dori.

“Eric volunteers for Rock and Wrap it Up! both at Christmas and Thanksgiving to feed the poor with his family,” Mandelbaum said. “Snack Wrap is important to us because we’ve been able to work with great partners.”   

Those “great partners” include Major League Baseball’s New York Mets and the National Football League’s New York Giants. All of the teams in the National Hockey League participate in every city where there is a franchise, as well.

“So many of us are so fortunate that we don’t…have to go to bed hungry, but even in our community right here in Port Washington, there are people who go to bed hungry," Wink pointed out.

He added: "There are people in need, so everything we can do to provide the food for those who most need it…is one thing that we certainly can do for them.”