New York’s Lower Eastside Service Center for Women and Children Devastated by Hurricane Sandy

November 21st, 2012

LESC Goodwill Ambassadors Heidi Albertsen and Justine Simmons with an infant receiving care at LESC in New York City. (Photo Credit: LESC)

For more than 50 years the social service agency Lower Eastside Service Center (LESC) has been helping opiate-addicted pregnant women, their infants, and at-risk youth across New York through its residential treatment programs, childrens’ camps, mental health services and targeted chemical dependency recovery programs. Last month’s Hurricane Sandy more than devastated the non-profit organiation, preventing LESC from continuing to work with women in need and destroying the facilities, supplies and resources housed at its headquarters on the lower east side of the city.

The LESC has never seen such destruction in all of its years of operation. At one of its primary treatment facilities located along the FDR where women live and receive addiction recovery services, the basement was flooded up to the ceiling, totally destroying imperative supplies including food, clothing, washing machines and the main generator which LESC relies on to supply heat to each of its infants in care. A second permanent supportive housing complex for those suffering with HIV and AIDS sustained serious interior and exterior damages and is still without heat as of today.

Devastation at LESC’s facility in Manhattan’s lower east side. (Photo Credit: LESC)

Countless families and children associated with LESC are still suffering from lack of supplies, heat and the resources they need to survive, and they need your help!

Supermodel and New Yorker Heidi Albertsen is helping LESC to get the word out about how to donate and support the rebuilding of LESC’s facility conditions.

DONATE:

Online:

Make a donation online at LESC website.

By Mail:

Please mail personal checks, made out to “Friends of LESC” to Peter Santoro at 80 Maiden Lane, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10038.

Any amount will help make a difference and breathe life back into an agency desperately in need. For more information about LESC and its work in New York please visit lesc.org or call 212-566-LESC (5372).