What can bring together a performer, a graphic designer, a developing martial artist, an aspiring engineer and a small child together in one place for a Saturday afternoon?
If you answered “The Breakfast Club,” you’d be wrong.
The answer is the spirit of volunteering and generosity, something that unites many of the local youths that participate at the Richmond Hill-based nonprofit River Fund New York.
Swami Durga Das, the founder of the River Fund New York, has often referred to the youths who volunteer at the multi-service food pantry as a key part of their success.
In a blend of both hard work and spirited play, dozens of youths from around Queens often spend their weekends lending a hand at various tasks year round at the River Fund’s Lefferts Boulevard headquarters.
The amount of work they do changes with the seasons, said Enmanuel Gutierrez, 18, one of the oldest youth volunteers. During the spring and summer months, volunteers distribute bags of items such as cabbage and corn from the trucks to the pantry, stock the shelves with food, crush and pile boxes and pallets and help to hand out the food to the nonprofit’s clients.
That work becomes harder in the winter, when they spend the day doing many of those activities in the bitter New York cold.
However, while children and youths, ranging from ages 8 and up, spend much of their time at the nonprofit working, they stay energized by not only working hard, but playing harder.
Typically, their day starts around 6 or 7 a.m. on any given Saturday or Sunday, and after the lines close in the afternoon, they clean, restock the shelves and prepare the food pantry for the next week of busy lines.
Afterwards, many of them gather during the warm seasons at Smokey Oval Park to play basketball and football, while during the winter, they spend their off-time in playful snowball fights with each other.
Enmanuel, who is studying electrical engineering at LaGuardia Community College, said the youths are close, referring to them as his “second family.”
“As time goes on, you build a stronger bond, especially with Swami, the way that he runs things,” he said. “You can joke around while you work hard, and when you finish, you can talk and joke and do things.”
Brandon Boodhoo, 17, who goes to school in Richmond Hill, was helping his cousin on the food lines when Das had asked him about helping out on the lines for one day.
While Boodhoo didn’t put much thought into staying long-term, he enjoyed that day so much that he decided to come back again; and he’s been doing it for the last two years.
“I think it’s like a good addiction,” he said. “I just keep coming all the time. Coming here, helping people and seeing a smile on their face gives you a good feeling of helping. It’s a fun thing.”
Kevin Sohanlall, 18, of Richmond Hill, has been volunteering for a year, and had no idea that the pantry was even near his neighborhood before a day assisting his grandmother led him to the River Fund.
“My parents love that I’m here. They like it because it keeps me out of trouble, not that I like trouble, but I come here and have fun and it works out,” he said.
“I was born into this,” said Laxmi Devi,
a Jamaica teen who has been volunteering at the River Fund since she was a child. Devi works primarily in stocking the shelves.
“I’ve been here for a very long time, and it was a decision I made,” she said. “Usually, kids see something like this and think ‘that’s cool,’
but they don’t interact with it; I decided to interact with it.”
Before the River Fund, few of the youths were involved in any civic or volunteer work.
Enmanuel, who was one of those being served on the lines, became involved in the fall of 2009, when he had heard one day that they needed someone to translate Spanish to English for one of the clients. Afterwards, he was asked about helping the nonprofit on a more frequent basis, which he accepted
.“Me personally, I like helping people,”
Enmanuel said. “Every person has a different story, and when they come here, you feel good about giving them help. They’re all less fortunate; if, God forbid, I fall into that situation, it’s good to know that someone is there to lend a hand.”
Enmanuel added that his mother was initially skeptical about his volunteering for the pantry, considering that they lived around a rough neighborhood.
“She was a little overprotective then,” he said. “She wanted to know where I was going, because she felt safer with me in the house…but as soon as she saw what I was doing, she started clapping.”
Michael Harkins, who has been participating since his last year of high school, got involved thanks to Enmanuel recommending him, as did Jonas Gutierrez, Enmanuel’s younger brother.
“Yeah, I got both these guys in,” Enmanuel said jokingly as he and the other volunteers sat on the porch of the River Fund after the day’s activities ended.
For Harkins, who does drawing and studies as a graphic designer at Mercy College, the River Fund provides another outlet for him to discover more about himself.
“It started with Swami, he was that cool of a person,” he said. “Then I started getting into the work flow with people, finding out the type of person that I am; that’s why I like it here.”
On the surface, many of the youths who volunteer could not be more different. Jonas practices Tae Kwon Do and enjoys playing football, while Rosalia Isaac, 12, studies at the Queens College School for Math, Science and
Technology, and Boodhoo is a distance runner and cricket player at his local high school.
Yet, if there is anything that they could agree on, it is the idea that helping their fellow man brings them a special sense of satisfaction.
Isaac, who helps to distribute food in front of the lines, enjoys playing the piano, acting and dance in her spare time. Yet, for her, she finds a special joy in helping out at the River Fund.
“It’s something that is really fun, and we like helping people,” said Isaac.
While Boodhoo runs a busy week between school, sports and volunteering, he would not change the chance to help out at the River Fund for anything.
“It’s our neighborhood, and it’s good to help people who need a hand,” Boodhoo added.
Devi, who hopes to eventually take the reigns of the operation whenever Das decides to retire, summed it up in these words. “For all of us, it’s about seeing the looks on people’s faces, knowing that they received something that they probably didn’t have before,” she said.
“It’s fun working with Swams. He’s hardworking, but he’s fun, too,” said Sohanlall. “As long as this place is open, I’ll be here.”
By Jean-Paul Salamanca
jp.salamanca@theforumnewsgroup.com
