As Covid-19 became a larger and larger problem on the East End, Marit Molin, the founder of a nonprofit called Hamptons Art Camp, realized the last thing on people's minds was finding an art camp for their kids. So she shifted her focus from registering kids for camp to raising money to provide meals for those in need.
Ms. Molin's method also helps restaurants stay in business. Here's how it works: Donations are made to Hamptons Art Camp, and Ms. Molin uses the money to order 100 meals per day from a local restaurant. Those meals are then delivered to places like the Shinnecock Reservation, the First Baptist Church of Bridgehampton, and the Sag Harbor Community Food Pantry, where people can pick them up, take them home, and heat them up for dinner.
With donations from the Southampton Lions Club and the Southampton Bath and Tennis Club, among many others, Ms. Molin, who lives in Water Mill, has also delivered more than 850 pounds of produce to the Shinnecock Nation. There will be similar deliveries on a weekly basis, she said. They have also handed out — as could be expected — packages of educational art supplies for children, which were provided by another nonprofit group, Supplies for Success.
"Although the focus of Hamptons Art Camp is typically to help underserved children, [we] quickly realized the need to redirect [our] efforts in order to help our community get through the virus-related crisis," said Ms. Molin, who also leads a Girl Scout troop on the reservation and is employed as a social worker. The art camp is normally held at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor.
She said she is grateful to several volunteers, including Dana and Tal Litvin, Chuck and Linda MacWhinnie, Dan Shedrick, Nicole Williams, and Nika Nesgoda and Hank Muchnic, for their help keeping the project going.
Donations can be set up and more information learned at hamptonsartcamp.org. The email address is [email protected].