5 Chefs Stir the Pot to Raise Money for Rockland’s Largest Food Pantry
Five Rockland County civic celebrities recently rolled up their sleeves to cook up a spicy sauce to promote and benefit the vital work of People to People.
For more than 30 years, People to People has worked to help Rockland County’s most vulnerable community members --- single parents, veterans, seniors, or anyone else who is struggling to put food on the table and make ends meet.
People to People (P2P) is widely recognized as the largest hunger relief organization in Rockland. P2P estimates that approximately 31,000 Rockland residents suffer from food insecurity. The hunger relief organization feeds nearly 5,000 Rockland residents per month.
In 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 crisis when many local people lost their jobs, P2P estimates it served 1.1 million meals.
The competing chefs, in their traditional white headgear, are here with their supporters: Rockland County Sheriff Lou Falco; Dorothy Filoramo, President Emerita of People to People’s Board of Directors; Sabrina HoSang, Chair of People to People’s Board of Directors; People to People Chief Executive Officer Diane Serratore; Tom Brizzolara, Director of Corporate Affairs at Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc.; Ed Mooney, a People to People volunteer; and former People to People Board Member Liz Benuscak. Tom Brizzolara’s sauce won the competition, which raised $35,000 for P2P.
The “Get Saucy” fund-raising event at the Nyack Seaport is an annual competition among amateur Italian red-sauce makers who also are well-known community figures.
O&R’s Corporate Affairs Director Tom Brizzolara, the evening’s winning chef, shared some thoughts about People to People after the sauce competition ended.
“O&R has been a strong supporter of People to People since the organization’s inception, donating between $25,000 to $30,000 each year to help achieve this wonderful hunger relief organization’s important and ever-growing mission: to feed Rockland’s hungry,” he said.
He added, “The best way I think to capture the impact of People to People on the community is to say that People to People is the essence of real. There’s nothing theoretical about People to People’s work: these are real people dedicated to helping real people with real problems address those problems with real action.”
He said, “You see your contribution put to immediate use in a concrete way to meet the immediate need of a real person --- not a statistic, not an abstraction. This isn’t about politics or posturing, position or prestige. It’s about food on the table and clothes on the back and heads held a little bit higher because there will be supper for the kids tonight.”
He concluded, “That’s as real as it gets.”
Here’s how to contribute to help support People to People’s efforts on behalf of Rockland’s hungry neighbors:
People to People. 121 West Nyack Road, Nanuet N.Y. 10954 (845) 623-4900.