Astoria Organizers Set Sights On Keeping NYCHA Residents Warm

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Community organizers are coming together to help Astoria and Long Island City public housing residents stay warm this winter.

The Astoria Mutual Aid Network and Transform America, a grassroots community-building organization based at Queensbridge Houses, are partnering on a fundraiser and donation drive to give space heaters and warm clothing to local NYCHA residents who have been living without gas and heat.

They have so far raised about $3,000 on GoFundMe — enough to purchase about 100 space heaters, organizers said.

Donations of new and gently-used warm clothing, which can be brought to Rivercrest on Ditmars Boulevard or LIC Kleaners on Steinway Street, will be distributed on Jan. 22 at Queensbridge Houses.

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The "Keep Queens Warm" initiative addresses a real need in the NYCHA community, according to Lashawn Marston, a Transform America organizer and Queensbridge resident who goes by the moniker Suga Ray.

"If we all saw each other as human and deserving of at least the basic human necessities — healthy food, adequate clothing, dignified housing — we'd be in a much better space, individually and collectively," he told Patch.

The fundraiser and donation drive are part of next week's national MLK Day of Service, a federal holiday.

Arielle Siegel, of the Astoria Mutual Aid Network, said neighbors have been so supportive that they already pushed the GoFundMe well over its original goal of $1,500.

"I've been blown away by peoples' willingness to help and desire to pitch in," she said.