Orthodox community, Lawrence schools find common ground

Winter coats and canned food are the link

By Michael Orbach

Issue of January 15, 2010/ 29 Tevet 5770

In what could be the coldest winter to hit New York since the 1970's and after what might have been the most divisive year ever in the Lawrence School District, coats and cans are bringing the Five Towns together again.

Five Towns One Community, a new organization founded by members of the Dist. 15 school board and other community leaders, is working to conduct food and clothing drives across the Five Towns for poor families whose children attend the Lawrence Public Schools.

"That first cold day parents called and couldn't send their kids to school because they didn't have winter jackets," related Bracha Katz, the community liaison for the Lawrence schools and one of the organizers of the drive.

The seeds of the organization were planted at a school board meeting held beforeThanksgiving where board members spoke with community leaders, school social workers and principals. The social workers discussed some of the problems facing the current crop of students.

"65 percent of students are minorities and over 45 percent are on reduced lunch [in the school]," explained Gary Schall, the director of the Lawrence School District music program and another organizer. "We have kids who are in need of jackets and clothes in general."

He said that the participants moved quickly after the board meeting to address the needs. Board members, the majority of whom are Orthodox, contacted local shuls and yeshivas. Other community leaders contacted civic organizations and churches.

"Poverty is a problem in every community," said Reverend Wilbert Pharr of the First Baptist Church of Lawrence, which is collecting food and clothing. "It's quietly kept, because one of the things is people and families have pride and they don't like this to be publicized, but wherever there is a need we have to seek it out."

Using funds left over from a successful campaign this past August to raise money for families devastated by a fire, the organization's first action was to distribute $2,000 worth of Stop-and-Shop gift cards to 80 families identified by social workers. However, the number of families asking for the cards quickly grew.

"The problem with the gift cards we were giving out was there was so many people in need," Katz explained. "We had to really pick the most needy. We sent home forms with the clothing drive and they came back so quickly."

Clothing and food drives were started in three local yeshivas with churches pitching in to collect and donate the clothing. Students in the Lawrence High School began sorting and organizing the clothing.

The Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB) elementary school collected close to 400 cans for the drive, according to Rabbi Jeremy Feder, who is supervising the effort.

"Kids were excited to bring in [cans]," Rabbi Feder told the Jewish Star. "Kids would come looking for the collectors to give it to them before they were collected."

A clothing drive in the Davis-Renov-Stahler (DRS) Yeshiva High School brought in 3,000 items of clothing, including 500 new winter coats and sweatshirts donated by the Peyser family of Lawrence, owners of the Weatherproof clothing company.

"It's not such a hard thing to do," said Natan Cohen, a senior who, with Ben Peyser, spearheaded the effort. "And it makes a huge impact on the community. It's something in my power to do and I felt like I should help."

HAFTR High School donated clothing racks and managed a clothing drive among students.

Katz said she plans to involve other local schools, though mainly it's about coordinating and sorting the goods. The effort is also one viewed as healing a fracture between members of the Jewish community and the general community.

"It's overdue," said Reverend Pharr about the effort. "This is something we should have been doing a while ago. I believe and hope this will bring us all together on common ground to understand one another and really show the community that there is no separation and we can work together in unity to make a change and make our community a better one."

Shea Kastriner agreed. He is a senior at Lawrence High School who is spending his senior internship sorting through used clothing.

"Not many districts have the opportunity to work together as one," he said. "There has been feuds between Jewish kids and Jewish religion and the Lawrence public school, but I think Mr. Schall and [school board member] Dr. [Asher] Mansdorf are working hard to make the community one again."

No one person has taken credit for the effort. The principal organizers, Bracha Katz and Gary Schall, credited one another and Chris Milano of the Lawrence School District Buildings department, who picked up the clothing and canned goods from the local schools. Schall also credited board members Asher Mansdorf and Dr. David Sussman.

"They're right behind this and the clergy we've been working with are extraordinary people. We found a common ground," Schall explained. "I see this flow from the synagogues and yeshivas in articles of clothing. It's an extraordinary gesture, the merging of public school with clergy, whether church or synagogue. The public school can become a conduit between the churches and the synagogues and we want to be that conduit. I think it's a beautiful thing."