Local Business Owner Donates Blankets, Hand Warmers for East End Homeless

As the temperature plummets, the East End’s most vulnerable, a growing homeless population, all too often find themselves struggling to survive.

Some, who have been living in tents in the woods, find themselves in life-threatening situations and trying desperately to protect themselves from the bitter elements.

When Rena Wilhelm, owner of the Weathered Barn Lifestyle Boutique in Greenport, saw a photo on a Facebook page recently of tents pitched in Moore’s Woods, not far from the village’s bustling downtown, she was deeply moved, and compelled to help.

To that end, Wilhelm recently donated dozens of blankets to Maureen’s Haven, an organization run under the auspices of Peconic Community Council in Riverhead.

Maureen’s Haven provides the homeless with a warm place to sleep, dinner, lunch, and the love and fellowship shared by the hundreds of volunteers and houses of worship on the East End that open their doors each night of the week to keep the program alive and vibrant.

“We have received a very large and generous donation of brand-new blankets from Weathered Barn Lifestyle Boutique,” said Cody M. Greenfield, program manager of Maureen’s Haven in an email to coordinators, inviting them to restock their shelves if need be. Often, the homeless sleep on cots in churches and some, chilled to the bone from walking bitterly cold East End streets all day, request a second blanket.

A simple request, but to someone with no home to call their own, it can mean everything.

When asked what prompted her outpouring of kindness, Wilhelm said the photo on Facebook of homeless neighbors living in tents brought back the tragic memory of a man who froze to death last year in a Greenport garage.

She didn’t want the same thing to happen again this year.

“One of my employees collects donations for Maureen’s Haven andI had heard of this organization many times,” Wilhelm said.

She added that she has wholesale access to an Army Navy supply company that offers survival and tactical merchandise. “I ordered 40 blankets and100 hand warmers with the intention of donating them to Maureen’s Haven.”

Once the merchandise arrived, Wilhelm mentioned the donations on a Facebook page and asked if anyone would be willing to drive the blankets and hand warmers to Riverhead.

“ I got many responses. One woman, Maria G. Milne, reached out to me personally and offered to have her husband pick them up from me and deliver them. Her husband picked them up from our shop on Saturday and they were delivered Monday.”

She added, “It was a small investment for me, but I know it would have a bigger impact for a shelter.”

And so, due to one woman’s act of warm-hearted generosity, dozens of area homeless will have added comfort on brutally cold winter nights.