Families participating in the Greenwich United Way’s Early Childhood Achievement Gap Solutions program will receive holiday meals generously provided by Garden Catering this year.
“At Garden Catering we have always given back to the community, but in March 2020 my brother and I decided we needed to do more and since then we have donated over 110,000 meals,” said Tina Carpenteri, who co-owns and manages Garden Catering with her father and brother.
“We have partnered with organizations like the Greenwich United Way and various food pantries to efficiently help those who need it most. It feels so good to give and especially so during the holiday season. We are proud to support ECAGS families and help make their holidays a little brighter.”
“It is the business owners in town like the Carpenteris who make our community the wonderful place it is to live, work and raise a family. We are grateful to Garden Catering for stepping in to make the holidays more celebratory for the families in our ECAGS program, who are working incredibly hard to provide their children with the best education possible,” said David Rabin, CEO of Greenwich United Way. “Garden Catering is beloved in this town for many reasons, but none more so than their commitment to supporting their neighbors.”
Garden Catering has been a Greenwich institution since the ‘70s when the original owners, Lou Iandoli and his business partner, opened Garden Poultry on Greenwich Avenue. In 1978, the company opened what is now its flagship location on Sound Beach Avenue under the name of Garden Catering. After Iandoli’s passing, the Carpenteri Family purchased the business and its secret recipes, reopening in 1991. The family now runs eight Garden Catering locations throughout Fairfield and Westchester counties. The Early Childhood Achievement Gap Solutions (ECAGS) program works to narrow the achievement gap in town. With 40 families currently participating, the two-pronged, research-based approach implements both home visitation and pre-school instructional coaching to support students and their families prior to the start of kindergarten in the Greenwich Public School system. For more information or to support ECAGS, visit https://greenwichunitedway.org/drive-to-425/.
The Greenwich United Way shares a name with approximately 1,200 other similar organizations across the nation, although the Greenwich, Connecticut division is a privately incorporated, locally governed, nonprofit agency. As a volunteer-driven organization, the Greenwich United Way exists to help identify and address the health, educational and self-sufficiency needs specific to its local community and to create and affect meaningful, lasting solutions. Through various fundraising efforts and on-going research, the organization is able to directly grant the funds necessary to accomplish this goal. The Greenwich United Way also invests in and conducts collaborative efforts to address broad-based community needs with partnering nonprofit agencies. For more information, visit https://greenwichunitedway.org, or follow us on Instagram and Facebook.