Warwick organizations benefit from Stewart’s Shops

WARWICK — Each year since 1986, from Thanksgiving through Christmas, Stewart’s Shops have collected and matched donations in its stores for the purpose of providing financial assistance to local organizations that benefit children under the age of 18.

2013/14 Holiday Match program
This year, four organizations in the Town of Warwick applied for the first time and received grants from Stewart’s Shops 2013/14 Holiday Match program.

Albert Wisner Public Library Foundation, the mission of which is to raise private funds in support of services and programs at the library, received a grant to support Teen Battle of the Books, a summertime reading program for younger adolescents.

Backpack Snack Attack, an outreach mission of Warwick Reformed Church that provides food on weekends and during the summer to needy children in the Florida, Greenwood Lake and Warwick school districts, received a grant to support the program.

Warwick Community Kitchen, an outreach mission of Vision Community Church in Pine Island that serves a monthly hot meal and bagged take-home lunch to any member of the community who desires to partake, received a grant to support Girl Scout Troop 627, which it also sponsors.

Warwick Ecumenical Food Pantry, located in the Warwick United Methodist Church and serving hungry people who reside in the Town of Warwick, received a grant to support its summertime program, when free school breakfasts and lunches are unavailable, of providing supplemental bags of kid-friendly groceries to needy families with children.

In addition, Stewart’s Shops 2013/14 Holiday Match program again benefitted two other good causes in our community.

Beautiful People, which organizes adaptive participatory sports programs for children with developmental and physical disabilities, for the fourth year received a grant that will enable it to enhance its programs of baseball, soccer, and basketball with the intent that every child deserves a chance to play team sports.

Winslow Therapeutic Riding Center, where children and adults improve their physical, emotional, cognitive and social well-being by learning horseback riding in a therapeutic environment, received a grant again this year to support its programs for children.

Stewart’s Shops, Inc. is a family- and employee-owned convenience store (many of which also sell gasoline) chain located in upstate New York and southern Vermont. The location nearest Warwick is on Route 17M in the Town of Goshen.