Twenty Ways to help your community NOW! 

Twenty Ways to help your community NOW! This week we add the Mt. Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry to our our list of local businesses and organizations on the front lines of COVID-19. Here’s a list of some of the ways you can help others in our community.

Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry: Since early March over 80,000 pounds of food moved through the Pantry at the United Methodist Church of Mt. Kisco to neighbors-in-need. Including 4,800 dozen eggs. Collectively, they are serving more than 700 unique families each week. Over the past 30 years, The Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry has developed the infrastructure and expertise required for the efficient, reliable, and cost-effective distribution of nutritious food. Their at-home delivery program serves 90+ households.  They partner with Neighbors Link and Feeding Westchester and provide support to the Mobil Food Pantry at the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester. Read more and donate here.

Westchester Cooks Online Cookbook for Lifting Up Westchester: Susanna Sussman of Meals-on-Wheels of White Plains, Johnny Livanos (Moderne Barn) and restaurant publicist Jessica Rosen Klein have teamed up to create Westchester Cooks, an online cookbook with recipes from local chefs, restaurateurs, and cookbook authors. All proceeds (a suggested donation of $10) go to Lifting Up Westchester, an organization that provides food, shelter and support to those in need. Westchester Cooks features recipes from chefs at Westchester’s most celebrated restaurants such as X20, Sonora, The Cookery, Maria’s in New Rochelle, Sam’s of Gedney Way, Moderne Barn, Lulu’s in Scarsdale and more. There are recipes for every palate from Linzer Tarts to Nachos. Make your donation to Lifting Up Westchester to receive your cookbook.

Bedford’s Virtual Playhouse: The Bedford Playhouse has teamed up with independent film distributor Magnolia Pictures to stream BPH curated quality films into your home and help tide the playhouse over until they can open again. The Bedford Playhouse receives 50% of your streaming fees on all Magnolia distributed movies in BPH’s virtual library. The library receives new releases of narrative and documentary films each week and currently features, The Woman Who Loved Giraffes, Spaceship Earth, and Best of Cat VideoFest. Check it out here.

Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester opened as an emergency childcare site for children of Northern Westchester Hospital personnel and other first responders as they continue to work tirelessly through this crisis. Additionally, they have become a food distribution center and have delivered 1500 meals over the past week. Throughout this crisis they also delivered computers to students k-12 and added WiFi access for families in need. While the club has closed its facility and suspended all programming they continue to offer daily virtual programming including STEM challenges, words of the day, fun facts and other Zoom-based programming. To donate click here.

Give to the Northern Westchester Hospital COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund: Like so many hospitals, NWH is in urgent need of personal protective equipment, breathing machines and food for their front-line staff. By giving to their COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund you are helping protect the lives of hospital staff, protecting the lives of patients, helping to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our communities and perhaps helping yourself, loved ones and friends who may find themselves requiring hospital care for any reason. That’s a community service home run.

Give to the Community Center of Northern Westchester: Many of us are spending an inordinate amount of time fretting over the safest way to secure food from Decicco’s or Whole Foods. Or the safest way to get a meal prepared by a local restaurant. It may be easy to forget that many people in Northern Westchester are relying on the Food Pantry at the Community Center of Northern Westchester in Katonah for their food and supplies. But the Center is in urgent need of monetary donations to purchase food and supplies that are critical to keeping its doors open for all who seek their support. They are also in need of canned food and toiletries for their client families. Find out what supplies they most need and how to make a financial donation or donate food, and toiletries here. 

Give to the Mount Kisco Child Care Center: While state and local governments are asking restaurants, theaters and schools to shut down to promote social distancing to lower the curve of the spread of the novel coronavirus – Westchester County has asked the Mount Kisco Childcare Center to stay on the front line and remain open. Why? Because they care for many of the children of the parents who work in Mt. Kisco’s hospitals and medical centers. As well as the parents who work in Mt. Kisco’s grocery stores and bodegas. They are also responding to the need to supply “distance learning to many children. Find out ways to donate here.

Give to Neighbors Link: Neighbors Link is partnering with Stop and Shop, Feeding Westchester, and 914 Cares to purchase and distribute gift cards to local families to buy basic necessities and medicines. They are also partnering with Feeding Westchester to distribute donated non-perishable food on a regular basis to 400 families. And with 914Cares to make sure families have access to diapers, wipes and other supplies. With centers in Mt. Kisco, Mt. Vernon and Ossining, Neighbors Link works to actively enhance the healthy integration of immigrants and serves over 4,200 people each year. Find out how to donate here or to participate in their Virtual Spring Fling – NL’s largest fundraiser of the year.

$3,000 – A modest Request to keep TCO going! When TCO was forced to cancel its April Together in Music event they lost a gran from the Town of New Castle. Now they need $3,000 to keep the orchestra flush to make it through the end of the season. This modest request reminded us of the bank run scene in It’s A Wonderful Life. After George Bailey explains why the Savings & Loan only has a portion of its assets held in reserve and can’t liquidate everybody’s account, one woman modest asks for $22.57. She got a big kiss on the cheek from George and her money. How ’bout a big kiss for TCO – and a small donation to help them out.

New Castle Eateries Deliver to Healthcare Workers: Robert Greenstein, Georgia Frasch and Deborah Garfield Weitzen raised over $96,000 to pay for meals from Chappaqua restaurants for staffers at Northern Westchester Hospital, Westchester Medical Center, Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, Phelps Hospital, White Plains Hospital & Montefiore Hospital. Participating restaurants include Le Jardin du Roi, Crabtree’s Kittle House, Ibiza Kitchen, The Quaker Hill Tavern, Lange’s Little Store, Old Stone Trattoria, Pizza Station, Taco Street, Villarina’s Deli & Catering and Rocky’s Millwood Deli. Their goal is $125,000 so keep on giving.

New! Armonk Raises Funds for Northern Westchester Hospital: Armonk Mom, Kenya Stumacher has raised over $21,000 against a goal of $7,000 to feed help staffers at Northern Westchester Hospital and support local restaurants. But, funds won’t last more than another week so let’s give it another go Armonk. Mt. Kisco, Bedford, Katonah and Lewisboro – you can play too! Donate here.

Restaurant gift cards: After our school and all things kids related, nothing brings more joy and adds more character to our towns than the local restaurants. Many local restaurants have responded to the COVID-19 crisis by adding delivery and curbside pickup services. Yet, for most local eateries revenues are a trickle compared to normal. Gift Cards are a way to claw forward future demand to keep our local eateries open and their staff employed. Here’s some reasons to buy Restaurant Gift Cards today!

• Buy a gift card for that family graduation dinner, today. You know you will be breaking bread out, whenever, to celebrate you child’s high-school, middle school or elementary school graduation.
• Buy a gift card for that Birthday or Anniversary dinner for your spouse or a Birthday dinner for friends today.
• First dinner out! Where do you want to dine for that first dinner out with your spouse after social distancing guidelines are last night’s leftovers. Commit to that now by sending a gift card to yourself.
• First Couples Night! After that first meal out with your spouse, you will want to reconvene those couples nights meals or summon up that old foodie group. Send a card for the whole group or start a chain and have everyone buy a meal for another couple until it comes back to you.
• Buy a Gift Card for the Restaurant that got away! Perhaps you never did make it to the first month of Armonk’s new Casa Tequila or you keep putting off a trip to Chappaqua for that interesting Tapas place, Ibiza. Everyone has a “next-up” restaurant on their wish list. Now’s the time to book it to make sure it’s there for you when this is all over.
• Check out our What To Eat: Restaurant Guide to help you plan your Restaurant Gift Card shopping.

Gift Cards for Local Retailers: Everybody likes to shop local and some of us even get around to it from time to time. Local retailers may not be able to wait until the current crisis is over for the resurgent urgency we all feel about the need to shop locally. So buy some gift cards now – before the sense of urgency wears off.  Here’s four reasons to buy Gift Cards from local retailers today. Then check our Where To Shop section to find the best places to shop in & around our towns.

• Back to School Shopping: You know the kids are going to need new clothes in the fall. Make a downpayment on your back to school expenses with a gift card to your favorite local kids boutique.
• Santa Baby comes early: Certainly you will get a bauble this year for the holidays. Put a down payment on that now with a local jewelry store.
• A new top: You always need a new top. Spring, summer, fall or winter. And when the shopping begins you are going to have lots of pent-up demand. Gift yourself with your favorite local boutique now.
• Someone in your life will need a good massage or facial when this is all over! Buy a gift card for your spouse or yourself. Or a friend. Start a chain and have your closest circle of friends buy each other a massage gift card until it comes back to you. The need for stress relief will not go away when the Coronavirus does. Check out our list of local spas. 

Note! The Covid-19 Stimulus Package, recently passed by Congress, entitles taxpayers who take the standard deduction to claim an additional $300 in deductions on their 2020 tax return for cash donations made to a nonprofit charity of their choice. For taxpayers who itemize deductions, they can deduct 100% of their charitable donations to a qualified public charity against their 2020 adjusted gross income.