How to Raise $23,498 in a Week, Feeding Neighbors, and Other Stories of Hope
Elmhurst has heroes without capes ready to restore hope!
It was only over a month ago when we were watching the craziness of Covid-19 unfold in countries like Italy while we continued living as if all was fine with the world.
And then it hit.
Suddenly we were disabled and written about on the news and featured in headlines leaving many wondering, how the hell are we supposed to support people throughout a time like this? Iconic American TV personality Mr. Rogers used to always say, “Look for the helpers.” He truly believed that when we began searching for those who restore our hope in humanity that we would find them.
My name is Fiel Sahir and I’m the Director of Partnerships here at City Mission.
Because there’s so much happening in our neighborhood of Elmhurst I decided to have me and my two interns look for hope through people doing great things in our community and share it with the rest of the world (Add smiley). So here we go…
2020 Ain’t the Year for Me
Ever wonder how people spend their time during quarantine? Some go out of their way to participate in daily food runs just to support those who are unable to. Crazy, right?
My name is Joey Mendoza and I’m an intern at City Mission and I’ve got some news to share.
Seeing how everything just changed so quickly because of COVID-19, it occurred to me that a lot of things I was looking forward to, like going to my high school prom with my friends, having a good time and finally yelling “WE MADE IT!” on the stage just seemed impossible. Not only that, people who are working a solid job have to work from home, which isn’t really a bad thing, but in some cases where they got laid off, have had it really rough.
This left a hard hitting blow for all of us.
Similarly to this, a lot of neighborhoods have had it rough. A prime example of this is the Elmhurst Hospital. I live in Elmhurst and after hearing the story about the hospital, fear was at my front door.
Literally.
This is when I knew things had escalated extremely and everything around me was changing. However, this did not stop Pastor Joseph Mantovani to help his com in Queens comunity serving other people with weekly food runs.
The Man with the Plan: Pastor Joseph Mantovani
The photo above showcases what really goes on at Zoom meetings
Seeing people go through tough times like these hit Pastor Joseph Mantovani hard. He realized that God had called him to do his part and help his community in Elmhurst, Queens. On April 3rd, Jason Tengker (another City Mission intern) and I had the opportunity to ask Pastor Joe what he had been doing in our neighborhood.
Pastor Joseph Mantovani has been serving his church, St. Jacobus Lutheran Church, for 10 years in a building he shares with five other congregations. This boosted his motivation to do service for his community, gathering people from different races, ethnicities and churches to become united in the midst of the virus.
Just how much does Joe care for people? On average, Pastor Joe does food run deliveries two times a week. Every Tuesday and Friday he serves on an average of 15-30 families. While on the weekends through a food pantry, he serves around 150 families.
That’s insane!
In hindsight, that’s a total of 700 people every weekend, and still increasing to this day.
Pictured are people from various churches and organizations working together at Atonement Lutheran Church in Jackson Heights organized by Pastor Joe Mantovani, April 30th, 2020
Pastor Joe gets his help from people across Elmhurst, Queens ranging from various neighborhood churches, local youth, and local helpers. They realized that they should initiate this so that when other people see this, they too can do the same by helping their own neighborhood with a simple food run.
During a time like this, it’s people like Joe who ignite the spark that’s inside of everyone to go out and reciprocate to give back to their communities.
We should all be considerate of the workers who put their lives on the line just for us at home.
Interludes…
It has been a little over a month since this quarantine started and I have been doing a lot of thinking. Where am I heading in life? How will long distance learning impact my education? What the heck am I going to do with all the free time I have?
I could list a bunch of things. All-nighters, play video games, develop new skills, practice my guitar, do creative home workouts, binge Netflix movies and series, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing all the things that I mentioned because it kept me sane. The longer the pandemic, the more I’m itching to go outside and get some bubble tea.
My name is Jason Tengker and I’m an intern at City Mission.
New York City has taken a toll with the Coronavirus. On a global scale, it's the current epicenter of the virus. According to NYC Health, as of April 30, 2020 there are approximately 167,212 confirmed cases and 12,774 deaths.
The Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York is overflowing with huge amounts of patients coming in and less coming out. We decided to help the neighborhood. By showing our neighbors who are helping us in this time of need. The doctors, nurses, government agencies are doing their job. But what is our job during this crisis? If we don’t work in these facilities. What can we do to help our local neighborhood?
Food Trucks from Pennsylvania: Pastor Joel Yoder
We at City MIssion want to find something or someone that is helping out the community because we want our community to know they aren’t alone. A person(s) that has the courage to meet people and help them with their needs.
Myself and Joey Mendoza the other intern, and through the connection with Fiel Sahir who is the Director Partnerships at City Mission held an interview.
We met Joel Yoder. Pastor Joel Yoder is a pastor of the Life in Christ Mennonite Church and works with MTC (Ministry Training Center).
Around the start of this mess people all over NYC (and the world) have started clapping for healthcare workers and other heroes without capes at 7pm. Where Joel lives in Corona/Elmhurst at 7pm it’s as if nothing happened.
Joel’s children thought they’d do something about it. At 7pm they began clapping to defy the silence and celebrate our healthcare workers. Then one by one, various houses in the neighborhood began banging their pots and pans to join in the celebration.However, Joel thought it was weird to clap because no one in his neighborhood was doing it. Although, his children thought differently. And started to clap to go along the trend. Once he saw his children clapping at 7pm he wanted to go along.
And on top of that, Joel stated that he is a person who loves people. When he sees or meets them, he gets energized. No wonder he loves helping them.
Joel tells us that organizations in Pennsylvania have been sending a truckload to their church every Thursday. This week there are 135 boxes delivered and distributed by families of the church to neighbors and friends of neighbors.
He hopes to have to have a one-time big hand-out once a month with a unit of 500 food boxes to distribute. And wants something that can last a bit longer; such as, non-perishable foods.
In addition to distributing food, they knew that people have needs that aren’t physical. Joel and the MTC wanted to show a sign of appreciation to the workers of Elmhurst Hospital. In doing so, they made hand-written thank-you cards for their brave hard work.
Joel choosing to believe as a follower of Jesus, and serving with his church and the MTC he sets his heart out to these people in their time of need. To show that there is hope in this lock down.
Raising $23,498: YOU!
We hope these great stories have warmed your heart! Good news is there’s more.
The best part is this includes YOU!
In early April, Our CEO Lester Lin decided that there must be something we could do to support healthcare workers and our local neighborhood Elmhurst Hospital. The building is now world famous and is literally in the epicenter of epicenters when it comes to fighting the coronavirus.
City Mission teamed up with the Elm Church and got approved by NYC Council Member Daniel Dromm to raise money for whatever the hospital needed at the time.
Within the span of a week, YOU helped raise (through a total of 422 donations) a whopping $23,498 to help the Elmhurst hospital get the medical supplies it needs to continue saving lives.
So just who are the superheroes of Elmhurst?I can guarantee you it’s not just those at City Mission or the people giving out food to those in need.You are a Superhero.
You are that helper that we’ve been looking for.
Thank you for your support of our organization and what we do.
Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram and if you have any stories YOU wanna share with us of the things you’re doing, email us at hello@citymission.nyc Talk soon!