TIVA and MPCA Hols Successful Penny Social to Fight Just Home at Jacobi Hospital

TIVA and MPCA Hols Successful Penny Social to Fight Just Home at Jacobi Hospital

By Robert Press

The Indian Village Alliance and Morris Park Community Association held a very successful Penny Social to raise funds for the fight against the ‘Just Home’ proposal to house currently incarcerated people in the Rikers Island infirmary at Jacobi Hospital. The Morris Park Community Association building was filled with people who bought tickets for the many donated items offered from local merchants hoping to win the item(s) they wanted, and to help fight the ‘Just Home’ proposal. 

The items offered included gift certificates to local restaurants, assorted services by local stores, various appliances, and other donated items. There were over one hundred and fifty items including four grand prizes that ranged from tickets to a Yankee Game in a special area, a fifty inch television, a gift basket with two hundred dollars in assorted gift cards, and another gift basket with seven hundred dollars in gift certificates. Members of TIVA had different tickets they were offering, where people would tear off half of the ticket to place it in a bag under or near the item they wanted, and hold the other half for when the winning ticket for that item was drawn. Members of TIVA brought the items up one by one as a ticket was drawn from the matching bag to announce the winning number of the item.

Councilwoman Kristy Marmorato and Assemblyman John Zaccaro stopped in to say a few words as both are opposed to the ‘Just Home’ proposal for Jacobi Hospital, and Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson has also voiced her opposition to the proposal which the Health and Hospitals corporation has voted in favor of going ahead with. The next step is the City Council where it will first go to committee. If it passes out of committee, it will go to the full council to vote on. TIVA and the MPCA have retained a lawyer to fight the ‘Just Home’ proposal and that is why the Penny Social was held. 

Assemblyman John Zaccaro voiced his opposition to the ‘Just Home’ proposal. 

Councilwoman Kristy Marmorato with Assemblyman John Zaccaro and a few members of TIVA.

Some of the items that were available, where people placed their tickets in the envelope that matched the item number they were going after.

 

At another table filled with items a woman places a ticket in the bag that matched the item she wanted to win.

 

TIVA member Lori Peterson called out the winning numbers that were pulled from the matching bags, or for the larger prizes from the drum filled with tickets.

The winner of the Mystery Prize is so happy with the two hundred dollars in gift cards she won.