Shoppers will have the opportunity to support Great Neck merchants and graduating high school students on Saturday, May 31 and Sunday, June 1 through a campaign called “Great Neck Helping Great Neck.”
The Great Neck Student Aid Fund, a non-profit group that gives grants to Great Neck residents entering their freshman year of college, has partnered with the Great Neck Chamber of Commerce to attract shoppers to the peninsula with discounts at participating stores and restaurants that will in turn make contributions to the fund.
Hooshang Nematzadeh, president of the Great Neck Chamber of Commerce and a Kings Point trustee, said he will be encouraging all of the chamber’s members to take part in the event.
“We will contact them and ask them to participate,” Nematzadeh said. “I think it’s a great idea because it helps our merchants and it helps [the fund].”
Nematzadeh said he will ask the chamber’s executive board to approve advertisements for the event to be placed in local newspapers to promote the event and support the student aid fund.
“We applaud the work they do,” he said.
Businesses that participate in the two-day event have agreed to donate 10 percent of their proceeds to the Great Neck Student Aid Fund, according to the student aid fund president Elise Kestenbaum.
“We want people to know that the [business] community is helping the community,” Kestenbaum said.
Businesses participating in the event will have posters hanging outside their storefront windows, Kestenbaum said.
Kestenbaum said she hopes the event will help businesses on the peninsula who were struggling financially as well as the student aid fund.
“When I realized there were a lot of stores that weren’t being frequented I decided to help out,” she said. “We need to support our community merchants.”
Kestenbaum said she hopes shoppers will return to the Great Neck businesses after the two days of shopping.
“My feeling is that once they go into the stores they’ll come back,” she said.
Kestenbaum also said she hopes the campaign raises awareness about the Great Neck Student Aid Fund.
“We’re kind of under the radar,” she said. “We just want people out there to know we’re supporting the community.”
Nematzadeh said he believes the event will be a success for both organizations.
“Both organizations benefit from this,” he said.
Kestenbaum said the Great Neck Student Aid Fund has been around since 1931 and is run by a 35-member board of directors.
“There’s some amazing people who have been on the board for 20, 30, 40 years,” Kestenbaum said. “They come from all walks of life.”
The fund assists 60 to 70 Great Neck students with the costs of their first year of college, Kestenbaum said.
“Sometimes there’s just a gap that they can’t close,” she said. “It used to be that we could pay for the first year of state school, but that’s not the case anymore.”
Kestenbaum said the amount of money given to students varies depending on the amount of financial aid the student receives from their college.
Students interested in applying for the fund can visit gnsaf.com.
Kestenbaum said applications are subjected to a “rigorous, objective screening process” and are judged by the organization’s board of directors.
Kestenbaum said the fund sends letters out twice a year to Great Neck residents, asking for donations.
Many of the people who donate, Kestenbaum said, are people who have been helped by the fund in the past.
“People do it because they were helped out by the fund,” Kestenbaum said.
For more information, visit gnsaf.com or e-mail gnstudentaidfund@gmail.com
