Island Harvest Honors HHS Senior Greta Farrell
It’s a story that can easily bring a tear to a person’s eye. Huntington High School senior Greta Farrell was honored for her remarkable volunteerism at Island Harvest’s annual Taste of the Harvest gala at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury.
Ms. Farrell, one of only two honorees at the massive fundraising event, was the recipient of the Linda Breitstone Spirit Award in recognition of her five years of outstanding involvement with and commitment to Island Harvest. She is the organization’s first ever student to be given the Breitstone Award.
The award is a prestigious one, especially considering in whose name it is presented. “Island Harvest was created in 1992 by one woman with a cooler, a station wagon, and a strong desire to help people in need,” according to the organization’s website. “Linda Breitstone, our founder, was infuriated that food from a local convenience store was being thrown away at the end of the day – with a safe house for women and children down the street. In response, she established Island Harvest and our mission, ‘to end hunger and reduce food waste on Long Island.’”
“Greta is a delightful young person who is as well-rounded as they come,” Huntington Superintendent James W. Polansky said. “Intelligence, character, persona, drive and energy – she has it all. And she routinely places the needs of others before her own.”
“When I was just 11 years old, my mom came across an article that explained Island Harvest’s need for more turkeys for Thanksgiving to feed the hungry on Long Island and I decided that I might be able to help, even if it were a small gesture,” Ms. Farrell said. “I wrote a letter to friends and neighbors in my community saying that I would be fundraising for Island Harvest by collecting any donations they would be willing to offer. In the letter, I also set a high goal of raising enough money for 100 turkeys.”
What made Ms. Farrell’s fundraising endeavor particularly difficult was that it ran for only two full days since she brought the funds collected to Island Harvest’s Mineola office on the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving Day.
“I drove around my neighborhood with my mom putting the letters in mailboxes on the Sunday before,” said Ms. Farrell, who plays goalie for the Blue Devil field hockey team. “I had no expectations for my fundraiser, just a rather lofty goal since I had never done a fundraising project before. In my letter I indicated that donations should be in the form of a check written out to Island Harvest and they could be left in my mailbox prior to Wednesday.”
On Monday, one check appeared in Ms. Farrell’s mailbox. “By Tuesday afternoon, my siblings and I would run up to the mailbox every hour or so and find a few checks,” she recalled. “The same pattern continued on Wednesday and that afternoon my mom and I drove out to Mineola to drop off the donations. I was able to meet Randi Shubin Dresner, the president and CEO of Island Harvest and many of the volunteers and employees who were so surprised that at the age of 11, I was able to raise about $1,500 in just over two days.”
Ms. Farrell’s Thanksgiving fundraiser has become an annual event. “To date, I have raised close to $10,000 for Island Harvest,” she said. Since its inception, Island Harvest has delivered 71 million pounds of food, supplementing about 66 million meals.
On the way home from school one afternoon last spring, the Huntington senior received an e-mail from Ms. Dresner, asking the teenager to call her. “I called and she asked me if I would accept the organization’s nomination to be the honoree at their annual gala at the Crest Hollow Country Club,” Ms. Farrell said. “At age 11, you don’t think five years into the future. From that short letter that I put in mailboxes, that small gesture to help out in my community, I never expected anything in return, let alone this level of recognition.”
At the gala, Ms. Farrell told the crowd that “anyone can impact a community. All it takes is an idea and the determination to see it through.” Island Harvest delivers millions of pounds of food to a network of 570 Long Island based food pantries, soup kitchens and other non-profit organizations committed to feeding those in need.
Ms. Farrell also participates with Island Harvest’s student advisory board, which consists of a small group of student volunteers that meet periodically and review fundraising strategies in schools. “Island Harvest runs a two-week campaign called Coin Harvest that many schools participate in throughout Long Island,” she said. “The idea of the fundraiser is to set up buckets around the school so that students may donate loose change. In eighth grade, I met with my school’s principal in order to discuss possibly participating in the campaign and she agreed to.”
In Ms. Farrell’s final two years at the Long Island School for the Gifted she was able to coordinate the Coin Harvest campaign there and her siblings continued it after she departed for Huntington High School.
“Verizon offers a $10,000 prize for the school that wins a drawing in which all schools participating in the Coin Harvest are entered,” Ms. Farrell said. “Students may vote for their school on a day-to-day basis in order to give it more chances to win the grand prize. For 2013, LISG was selected in the drawing as the grand prize winner.”
When she kicked-off her first fundraiser as an 11-year old, Ms. Farrell could never have imagined it was the start of something special. “I never knew that my efforts would amount to something as incredible as this, but seeing the result of that first step has taught me how valuable it is to take the initiative and to have continued commitment,” she said.