Love, Nana provides baby clothes to families in need

It all started in the spring of 2020 when one of Joan Hyland’s grandsons, Lynbrook Police Officer Ryan White, told her a local coffee shop worker was expecting his first child and needed baby clothes.

Hyland jumped into action, gathering baby clothes her great-grandson had outgrown.

“She got the baby clothes, the onesies and socks, washed them and folded them nice,” said White, 36, of Long Beach. “My grandmother says everyone deserves to wear something nice, no matter their financial situation. A lot of clothes donations are people putting clothes in a bag, but Nana knows how important it is to have that new feel. The presentation was beautiful, and she included a rattle, a picture book and shoes.”

That single donation to a struggling family helped kickstart Hyland’s nonprofit, “Love, Nana,” named after the affectionate sign-off she uses on every birthday card she sends to her grandchildren.

Founded in Hyland’s Malverne basement, the nonprofit quickly outgrew the space and by 2022 moved to a Rockville Centre storefront. Each year, it donates about 2,000 “bundles” — color-coordinated packages of gently used or brand-new clothes and accessories for infants and toddlers up to 24 months — to a half-dozen nonprofits in Nassau and Suffolk counties and Queens, said Hyland’s daughter Cristine Daly, 60, of Malverne.

“I want it [the bundle] to look like a gift from Nana and not like I’m giving it to charity,” said Hyland, now 86 and a great-grandmother of 11.

Hyland said her family faced financial challenges when she was a child.

“I had three siblings, and at times we had to live in different households because our family fell on hard times,” Hyland recalled. “When you grow up struggling, you know you don’t have much and others have things you don’t have. I thought if I give something that looked a little like a present, they wouldn’t be insulted by it. Whatever is in that bag is only the very best I can put together.”

VOLUNTEER PARTNERS

Hyland has partnered with Backyard Players & Friends, a nonprofit that offers community-based programs for teens and young adults with intellectual disabilities or autism. The participants volunteer three times a week to sort, launder and fold baby clothes while learning vocational and social skills.

Throughout the year, several Nassau County mothers’ groups, along with middle and high school students from East Meadow, Rockville Centre and Our Lady of Peace School in Lynbrook, help build Love, Nana’s inventory, donating baby clothing, shoes, toys and accessories, Daly said. A couple times a year, retailers TJ Maxx and Target contribute clearance items. Freeport and Cedarhurst nonprofits, Book Fairies and Hindi’s Libraries, respectively, donate picture books; and the Melville-based nonprofit Allied Foundation sends Love, Nana a supply of diapers.

The Rockville Centre Girl Scout troops No. 861 and 846 also offer helping hands, while retirees support Hyland in supervising the operation, Daly said.

Patti Harmon, 70, a retired nurse, has been volunteering at Love, Nana since 2021. The Point Lookout grandmother of 13 said the nonprofit is a “happy place that has become well known for doing good in the community. ... Joan is a joyful person, and it spreads to everyone.”

All of Love, Nana’s volunteers understand that every bundle “must pass the Nana test,” said Daly. “There must be no stains, it can’t be missing snaps or buttons and it can’t have lettering. ... Every bundle is a gift and if it does not look like a gift, it doesn’t go in the bag.”

Once, a few of the bundles that the volunteers worked on were “not up to par,” Daly recalled. “She [Hyland] sat them down and said, ‘We have to go through this again.’ Building the bundle is something you need to graduate to.”

On a recent Saturday, a visitor to Love, Nana’s storefront could hear clothes sloshing in a washer and tumbling and clicking in a dryer as Hyland led a handful of volunteers in folding donations.

BUNDLES GO TO OTHER NONPROFITS

“I’m extremely lucky. I have a village behind me,” said Hyland, a retired registered nurse, as she folded a snow jacket that will make up part of a winter bundle. “I’m proud of what we do. I don’t always see the people I help, but I know they will be happy with it.”

Sister Barbara Faber, a Sister of Mercy and director of parish social ministry at Our Lady of Peace Roman Catholic Church in Lynbrook, knows the impact Love, Nana’s donations make upon those encountering challenges.

“It [Love, Nana] is a profound influence and help to many people,” said Faber, who operates a food pantry and donates the clothing bundles to nonprofits that serve the homeless and migrant populations, including the Visitation Community of the Sisters of St. Dominic in Copiague and The Bowery Mission in New York City. “When people are in need or vulnerable for whatever reason, sometimes a little something like this means so much to them,” she said.

Daly said her mother’s work ethic is “inspirational” and that she and her six siblings were taught from an early age the importance of taking the initiative to address a need or problem.

“If there’s a need, we were taught to just fill it,” said Daly, an early childhood teacher at Our Lady of Peace School in Lynbrook. She said she often helps her mother move inventory — a few hundred pounds of clothing at a time — to the nonprofit’s storage unit.

Despite the number of volunteers involved with the operation, Hyland said she still felt the need to be at the storefront seven days a week — that is, until her children and doctor stepped in to scale down her schedule last year.

“The doctor had to tell her to cut back because she was doing too much,” said Hyland’s daughter Jennifer Marcellino, 58, also of Malverne, who assists with the organization of the multiple shelves and drawers packed with clothing and accessories that line the walls of the compact storefront. “When I go in, I have to make sure she eats because she’ll just keep working.”

HAPPY RECIPIENTS

Once the clothing bundles have been assembled and have received Hyland’s approval, they are ready for distribution, Daly said. A volunteer driver usually delivers the clothing to area nonprofits, with one of Hyland’s daughters stepping in occasionally.

Parents and Children Together at Family & Children’s Association, a nonprofit social service agency in Hempstead, is one of the organizations that distributes Love, Nana’s bundles to its clients.

Jesselyn Montano Rojas, a program coordinator at the agency, said Hyland’s compassion for those facing tough times is evident in every bundle she assembles.

“We have pregnant and new mothers who are adolescents still in school, and a lot have no family support and financial stability,” Montano Rojas said. “Sometimes the bundle has matching shoes, a matching bib and a blanket. ... It’s like a gift set, nicely folded and clean. Joan is so caring and compassionate, and she takes pride in her work and expects nothing in return.”

Kate Landsdorf, a case manager at the agency, added, “She puts a card in the bundle like you are getting a gift from your nana.”

UKRAINIAN REFUGEES

Love, Nana’s bundles even outfit some of the children of Ukrainian refugees at the Refugee Resettlement Program of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood. The ministry provides temporary housing, language instruction and job placement services for migrants, said Dorothy Crowley, a social worker and the program’s job development specialist.

Crowley said the refugees housed on the ministry’s campus have fled their war-torn countries to escape violence and political or religious persecution.

“These people have come with very little,” Crowley said. “They are so far from home, and their life has been turned upside down. ... The bundles make such an impact, and they are so appreciative.”

Daly recalled a day when a couple expecting twins arrived at the storefront in search of a crib, baby clothes and diapers.

“The man was crying, and I happened to have a crib in my car that someone had just donated,” Daly said. “That day they got everything they needed. ... It was very gratifying.”

Looking ahead, Hyland will continue to do the work of Love, Nana “because I’m helping somebody,” she said. “It’s special. It’s something that will lighten their load just a little bit.”