FH Groups Adopt Selma Mission

A week and a half ago, Barbara Stuchinski and the Forest Hills Community and Civic Center were looking for a way to help the thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims. So she called the Edmundite Mission in Selma, Alabama a long time provider of essential services down south. The response told Stuchinski all she needed to know.
“They said there was a whole contingent of evacuees from the Mississippi and Alabama area,” Stuchinski recalled. “They were on an airbase near Selma and they also had 700 additional evacuees in the Selma area’s small shelters, all with nothing except what they had come in with.”
Many of the evacuees would be living in the area for a while, so naturally they needed clothing, linens and toys for their children.
Stuchinski, the president of the Forest Hills Community and Civic Center, immediately contacted the Metro Forest Chamber of Commerce, whom she had worked with extensively in the past, as well as the American Legion Continental Post 1424, Councilmember Melinda Katz and Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi. They all gladly helped by collecting donations and raising funds.
With the money, donated by civic members, the Golden Age Club of Our Lady of Mercy and the 112 Pct., among others, Stuchinski was able to rent a van that will move the supplies down to Selma. She plans to make the trek later this week.
“People around here have been phenomenal,” Stuchinski said. “They’ve been very generous. It’s one thing to write a check and send it out, but when you get more involved on a personal level, [that means a lot]. Clothing and toys are things that people can spare and they know they are going to be put to good use…I was amazed by the response. It was much more than I expected.”
For more information on the clothing and linen drive, contact Barbara Stuchinski at (718) 997-7014.
zbraziller@queenscourier.com.