After four years of volunteering to help local food banks, four Syosset teens, and two sets of siblings—Jake Breecker, age 17; Max Schoenberg, age 16; Luke Breecker, age 15; and Brett Schoenberg, age 12—are continuing the fight against hunger by planting their own gardens. The produce will be donated to the local food pantry, Island Harvest.
The four teens said they started volunteering with Island Harvest in 2021 after learning about the widespread issue of food insecurity on the island in school. Now, they help run multiple food drives annually and are planting a “Giving Garden” to grow and donate healthy, nutrient-based foods on an ongoing basis in the Schoenbergs’ backyard.
Earlier this year, they were appointed to the nonprofit’s Student Leadership Council.
“We want to help people that aren’t able to get food easily,” said Max. “We want to just have a better source for them.”
Their family friend – and Luke and Jake’s mother – Robin Breecker said this project comes after years of volunteering with the organization and advocating food distribution.
“After many, many years of volunteering and running food drives and gathering tons of food and money, they wanted to make a bigger impact,” Robin Breecker said.
The group said they wanted to create something that had a lasting impact, emphasizing that they would be able to replant and harvest the garden each year.
“The intention is for them to do this while they’re still in high school, and then to pass it on to the next generation,” Robin Breecker said. She added that they could not have done it without the help of local businesses who provided them with material donations.
Michael Madarash, of landscape contracting firm Blondie’s Treehouse, was one of the businesses that provided equipment and planting supplies to the kids.
“I do this on a commercial scale all the time,” Madarash said as he guided the teens in constructing their container garden and drip irrigation system, helping them to pour gravel and soil into four metal ovals. “So when Robin and the kids asked me last December, ‘Do you think you can help with creating a garden?’ I said yes.”
The garden will grow produce like lettuce, beans, tomatoes and peppers – all crops that are high yield and low maintenance, Madarash said. The first harvest will be ready in just under two months, he added, with subsequent ones coming faster through fall.
“The issue of food insecurity is much broader, and it includes helping people who are food insecure overcome the position that they’re in that makes them food insecure,” Breecker said.
Their efforts drew the attention of Nassau County Legislator Arnold Drucker, who stopped by their house as they planted the garden on Saturday.
“It’s really important for elected officers to recognize the efforts that are made by young people to try to make this world a better place, and these young boys and girls have committed themselves to finding a way to help people who are less fortunate,” said Drucker, who said he has worked with Island Harvest for years. “That’s something to be celebrated. Every opportunity I get to recognize that, I do.”
Breecker and her children also emphasized the importance of Island Harvest’s annual Stamp Out Hunger event on Saturday, May 10, where anyone can place non-perishable food items in their mailbox, and postal workers will collect them to donate to the pantry. Breecker said it is the nation’s largest one-day food drive.
“The kids are really trying to spread the word for Island Harvest about that because it’s so simple to do,” Breecker added.
“We’re really fortunate to be where we are, and we just want to use this opportunity now to give back and hopefully help everybody have the opportunity to have what they need in the future,” Luke said. “We’re trying to do our part.”
