Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Since 1972

Every town likes to say it takes care of its own. On Grand Island, there's a group that's actually been doing it, quietly, for more than half a century. The Neighbors Foundation of Grand Island started back in 1972 with a plain idea and a name to match. Neighbors helping neighbors. More than fifty years later, that's still the whole thing.

It's an all-volunteer outfit, which means there's no big staff and no overhead eating up the donations. When somebody on the Island hits a hard stretch, a lost job, a stack of bills, a month when the grocery money just isn't there, the Foundation steps in with food and a little breathing room. No fuss, no lecture, no names in the paper.

A Retired General and a Roomful of Volunteers

Here's a detail that stops people. The person who leads the Neighbors Foundation is Maj. Gen. David Conboy, a retired two-star Army general who lives right here on Grand Island. You might expect a guy with that resume to run a tight, top-down operation. Instead, he's the first to say it isn't about him at all.

The way Conboy tells it, the Foundation works because of the people in it, not because of whoever happens to be in charge. It's just a bunch of neighbors, he says, people on Grand Island who want to help other people. That spirit has outlasted every president the group has ever had, and it's the reason the whole thing still runs on nothing but volunteers and donations after five decades.

The December Rush

If there's a season that defines the Neighbors Foundation, it's this one. As Thanksgiving passes and December rolls in, the group gears up for its Holiday Food Distribution, the biggest effort on its calendar. Families in need get a large holiday food basket, and the children get toys and gifts so Christmas morning looks like Christmas morning.

And it isn't pulled off by a handful of adults alone. A lot of the heavy lifting comes from Grand Island School District students, who collect non-perishable food across the Island and pitch in to make the December distribution happen. Picture teenagers hauling boxes of canned goods and stacking baskets, learning young what it looks like to show up for somebody they may never meet. One recent year, the busiest the Foundation had ever seen, they helped 68 families have a real holiday.

The Everyday Work Behind the Holidays

The holidays get the attention, but need doesn't keep a calendar. The Foundation runs an immediate-needs food pantry year-round, stocked with non-perishable items, and it hands out grocery gift cards so families can fill in what a pantry box can't. By the Foundation's own count, it gives away thousands of pounds of food and tens of thousands of dollars in gift cards every year. When the trouble is a utility bill instead of an empty fridge, the group has stepped in there too.

Some of that pantry gets filled every spring, when the Grand Island Letter Carriers run their Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive in May and gather non-perishable donations off porches all over the Island. It's one more way the work quietly ticks along between one holiday season and the next.

A Whole Island Pitching In

What makes the Neighbors Foundation a real Grand Island story is who shows up to help. The roots go back to 1977, when St. Stephen's Roman Catholic Church offered space so a food pantry could get off the ground. These days the list of helpers reads like a cross-section of the entire Island.

The Rotary Club of Grand Island pitches in regularly. A local Muslim faith group, the Service and Mercy Alliance, has donated non-perishable food. The Sandy Beach Farm Store and Bakery has sent over baked goods. Adrian's Custard and Beef, over at 2352 Grand Island Boulevard, teamed up with the Foundation for its Share Your Happiness campaign. One recent holiday season, that campaign set an ambitious $20,000 goal and blew right past it, helped along by a $4,000 matching gift the Rotary Club handed over during Christmas week.

People from different churches, different faiths, and different corners of the Island, all pulling the same rope. That's the part Conboy keeps coming back to.

Help That Comes With Dignity

One thing the Foundation guards carefully is how it treats the people it serves. The assistance is confidential, offered with dignity and respect, and open to everyone in the community. Reaching out for help can feel hard, especially for folks who've always been the ones doing the helping, and the Foundation works to make sure nobody feels small for asking.

If a family's needs run beyond what the group can cover, the volunteers help connect them with other food banks and resources around the community rather than just sending them on their way. The goal was never to be the only answer. It's to make sure the neighbor standing in front of them doesn't fall through the cracks.

How To Be Part of It

As the holidays come back around and the Holiday Food Distribution gears up again, the Neighbors Foundation runs on exactly what it always has, the generosity of regular Islanders. Because it's all volunteers, the money and food that come in go straight back out to neighbors in need.

If you'd like to help, or if you're the one who could use a hand this year, you can find the Neighbors Foundation of Grand Island at GINeighbors.org, or reach them by mail at Post Office Box 155, Grand Island, NY 14072. More than fifty years in, the mission hasn't changed a bit. It's still just neighbors, helping neighbors, one full basket at a time.