We mention her every week. 

She works endlessly to support the community. 

She organizes, connects, and spreads positivity everywhere she goes. 

So naturally, we asked her to come back.

Christine Fitzgerald of Smithtown Children's Foundation joined us for another episode of Lenard Team Connections, and she has certainly been busy the past eight weeks! She fills us in on what Smithtown Children’s Foundation is currently doing and what is coming up in the future!

Keep reading for highlights of our conversation, or listen to the whole thing here. 

4,000 Masks

Christine Fitzgerald: Everybody has seen that Jon-David and I partnered for a fundraiser to get KN95 masks. And within a week we had $7,000 donated, placed that first order, and we got 4,000 masks delivered. So that was just amazing. 

We had to think about where do we want to send these? We decided the nursing homes really needed to see some love, along with Long Island State Veterans Home. And the last delivery yesterday went to the VA hospital in Northport, and they were so appreciative.

Virtual Fundraisers

SCF sees a new need that the pandemic has created in addition to the fundraising events for their goals to help families. Here’s what coming up:

We've had an online auction, which has been great. A lot of people bought Mother's Day gifts from it. Now Father's Day is coming. 

Coming up there will also be a Wine Tasting Fundraiser and virtual restaurant bingo (more details coming soon!). 

This Saturday night we have something fun. We have a virtual scavenger hunt, family scavenger hunt. It's two and a half hours long. Right before it starts, you'll get a list of tasks. And it can be as silly as recreate a family Christmas photo. You take the photo and upload that. So it’s a private group, you have to join it, there's a fee to be on it, but it's just a fun family activity. 

Note: There’s something new every week, so stayed tuned on SCF’s Facebook page for all the info!

What about the Senior Class?

The other thing that we really wanted to do something about was to give our class of 2020 kids something. We love them and we support them and we understand what they're going through. So we have a Facebook group called Celebrate our High School Seniors, and people can go on there and buy a booster and basically a message that they want to send to a particular senior. The funds we raise from that will go towards providing a some sort of gift card for every high school senior in Smithtown. 

The other thing we did for seniors is create an e-commerce website, with different shirts available for purchase. 

It takes a village

It’s hard to keep track of all the amazing things that Smithtown Children’s Foundation is doing. Raising money, supporting local businesses, and giving back to families in the community every day. How does it all get done? Here’s what Christine said:

“It takes a village. A lot of people support us. A lot of people believe in what we're doing. People we've helped, who were like, ‘wow, I'm on the other side of what I had to deal with. So now how can I help?’ And that's great because it's all about paying it forward and being kind and loving where you live.”