Sag Harbor Helpers: Providing Essential Support to Those in Need

What began as a grassroots effort to assist elderly residents during the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved into a vital community lifeline. Sag Harbor Helpers, a volunteer-driven organization, continues to provide weekly meals, financial assistance, and essential services to those in need.

“Sag Harbor Helpers is a group of local Sag Harbor volunteers who offer weekly meals, holiday meal packages, financial assistance, errands, and grocery shopping,” said Cindy Ward Capalbo, one of the organization’s coordinators. “It all started with the onset of COVID and an idea to help our elderly guests who were fearful of contracting COVID by going out and doing daily tasks, such as shopping.”

Volunteers prepare and deliver meals, run errands, and provide aid to those facing financial hardship. The organization also steps in during the holiday season, providing meals to as many as 50 people.

Beyond meal deliveries, Sag Harbor Helpers has assisted families struggling with utility bills, groceries, and personal care items. In one notable instance, Capalbo said, the organization covered the cost of a large overdue electric bill for a family in need and provided holiday and birthday gifts to bring some joy to their lives. Another family received donations and gift cards to help ease their financial strain. Another project involved making a home safer.

“We helped a family in need with fuel and electricity during the winter months as well as paid a large past due electric bill,” Capalbo said. “We also helped them with Christmas and  birthday gifts so that they had something to look forward to. Finally, we provided them groceries, personal care items and paper products. We also helped another family with donations and  gift cards that were struggling. We have also paid some bills for that family.”

In addition to Capalbo, the other workers are Denise Dee, Rebecca Guyer, Mary Bori, and Marianne Ward help keep the organization running smoothly. Their work includes phone calls, planning volunteers for meals, being on call for emergencies, planning delivery people, banking, and making thank you cards for donations.

As Sag Harbor Helpers looks to the future, expanding its reach remains a priority. Capalbo envisions providing more social opportunities for guests, securing a social worker for additional support, and obtaining a dedicated storage space and office. A long-term goal is acquiring transportation to assist those who need help getting to appointments or running errands.

“We have a great group of volunteers, we only hope to continue to have them so that our job is easy. We would love to provide more companionship to our current guests but that is a challenge. We would love to be able to help more people,” Capalbo said. “We would love to be able to do activities for our ‘guests’ so that they can socialize with other local people. We would like to have the assistance of a social worker that we could reach out to that could help our clients if need be. A place to store or supplies and office space are things that we would dream of having, and finally we would like to have a form of transportation that we could use to get our ‘guests’ to the places they need to go.”

For more information, visit sagharborhelpers.org or call 631-926-2277.