December 2025

Providing Joy with a Toy

For many of the children and families we serve, the holidays can be a difficult time. Housing instability, health challenges, and financial stress can make it hard to celebrate the season—especially for kids.

Our Annual Toy & Gift Drive helps change that. Each year, this effort raises funds to ensure that all 2,000+ children at Samaritan Daytop Village receive a gift to open during the holidays. A simple, unwrapped toy can bring joy, comfort, and a sense of normalcy to a child whose life has been disrupted by circumstances beyond their control.

Here’s how you can help: Purchase a toy from our Amazon Wish List here.

Your generosity helps ensure that every child feels joy this holiday season and that we make the holidays brighter for all families.

Alleviating Holiday Hunger

This holiday season, too many New Yorkers are experiencing soaring food prices, making it harder than ever to put food on the table. Families are being forced to choose between groceries, rent, utilities, and other basic needs.

That’s why we have been stepping forward to ensure our neighbors don’t go hungry. Over the past month, we’ve hosted several food distribution events across our programs, providing hundreds of individuals and families with fresh, nutritious food.

And we continued to show families that eating healthy is possible, even when your groceries are coming from a food pantry. Our wellness coach has continued to provide healthy cooking demonstrations using food pantry ingredients.

Errol Louis: "I'm always happy to send Samaritan another $500"

New York’s leading political commentator and host of NY1’s Inside City Hall put out a yearly list in New York Magazine of organizations he recommends people donate to. Once again, we are on the list!

Errol explains that our work is important because we support people, “including the kind of folks you see on the street, in obvious distress, whom the rest of us walk past every day.” He goes on to write, “I’m always happy to send Samaritan another $500.” Will you join him? Donate here.