Can You Help Too is celebrating its fourth year of serving the community with an exhibit at Smusht, a local ice cream shop.
Can You Help Too is a community project founded by local brothers David and Johnathan (Jojo) Gold during the COVID-19 pandemic. The brothers began donating extra canned goods to Our Lady of Fatima’s food pantry to help those struggling during the lockdown.
From a young age, the Gold brothers learned about giving back to their community through volunteer work with their parents. The generosity instilled in the brothers inspired them to get friends and family involved in their donation efforts during the pandemic, which led to the formation of Can You Help Too.
When David left for college at Syracuse University, Jojo took over Can You Help Too, with help from David from a distance. When David returns for school breaks, he resumes his work with Can You Help Too.
Over the past four years, Can You Help Too’s CommUNITY Project has established several permanent donation boxes across Port Washington and one in Huntington at The Long Island School For The Gifted. Drop-off locations include Smusht, Carlo’s Pizza, BeautyFluff, Bach to Rock, The CookingLab, The Sands Point Preserve, The Parent Resource Center, and The Long Island School for the Gifted. Can You Help Too also helps organize pop-up locations with food drives.
People drop off canned goods, diapers, and baby formula. Can You Help Too then divides the donations between two organizations; the canned goods go to Out Lady of Fatima, and the baby goods go to the Parent Resource Center.
To celebrate Can You Help Too’s success, Jojo, David, and their friend Max Kabot organized an exhibit of food artwork to be displayed at Smusht to raise awareness for their project. Since Smusht owner Steve Edelson often displays local artists’ art on the walls, Jojo asked if Can You Help Too could organize an exhibit to be featured.
“I really wanted to find a way to get more people involved in our commUNITY project,” said Jojo.
Jojo’s after-school Social Action Club at The Long Island School for the Gifted worked on painting food on canvases to display in the exhibit. Fifteen members of the club joined in on the project and enjoyed the creativity and collaboration.
The club’s passion inspired Jojo, David, and Max to ask for more help from children in the Port community.
“Students from the Long Island School for the Gifted, children from Port, campers from Summer Together and The Nicholas Center helped paint beautiful artwork you can now enjoy at Smusht until the end of August,” said Jojo. “That’s when I realized that art really brings people together. “
The exhibit features a variety of artwork, including large and small paintings representing food. Jojo shared that his favorite painting is of their collection bin made of mini canvas squares.
“The collaborative artwork symbolizes the essence of our community project, emphasizing the collective effort required to bring it to life,” said Jojo. “Each group of children was assigned a square with directions. Once we put all the squares together, you could see a large bin in the middle surrounded by food.”
In addition, the exhibit includes boards with pictures that share the story of Can You Help Too and its team leaders, David, Max and Jojo. Other boards feature photos of residents dropping off donations, key community leaders involved with the project, and information about participating local businesses.
“I believe it is important to highlight everyone involved, especially local businesses who host our collection bins,” said Jojo.
QR codes have been added to the boards, allowing visitors to easily access information on donation drop-off locations, online ordering, and business websites.
Jojo and David also created a special board in memory of their French grandfather, who passed away in 2012.
“We are paying tribute to his legacy. He had a giant vegetable garden and a giant heart, and he often gave them away,” said Jojo. “He was the best. He would have been so proud. I miss him.”
“I really enjoyed working on this exhibit project with my brother and Max. It was definitely a lot of work, but it was really fun,” said David. “Who knew four years ago we would be doing what we are doing today. It’s incredible what we can accomplish when the community comes together.”
“I started being involved two years ago and this year even more,” said Max. “I would like to thank David and Jojo for starting this community and for asking me to help run it. It is an amazing project which thrives to help out the families in need of food.”
Visit the Can You Help Too website (canyouhelptoo.org) for more information on these drop-off sites.
