In Contrast to a holiday season that saw charitable giving decrease across America, I am very proud to say that our 2009 Teddy Bear Drive was a great success.
This year we collected over 1,300 Teddy Bears for hospitalized and less fortunate children in the communities that we serve. This total surpassed last year's record of 900 and brings our combined total of over 5,100 collected over the past six years.

The bears were distributed by our volunteer FOCO members on December 17th to the following locations:

                                      Winthrop Pediatric Cancer Ward
                                          Winthrop Pediatric Cardiac Ward
                                                        Ronald McDonald House
                                                                Schneider Children's Hospital
                                            L.I.J. At Franklin General Hospital
        The Interfaith Nutrition Network (The INN)
The Nassau University Medical Center

The success of this project was made possible by the generosity of the courthouse community. We would also like to thank Commissioner of Jurors Robert Truzzolino, the Locust Valley H.S. Junior Varsity and Varsity Cheerleaders and their teacher Doreen Kobus. We would also like to acknowledge Argyle Hair Co., Kennedy H.S. And Sally Donohue.

Special thanks to project coordinator, Nancy Puglise and team leaders, Janet Walsh, Rene Costello, Theresa Pepe, Marc Delcielo, Jackie Delaney and Marty Messina.

I would like to take this time to thank everyone who donated a teddy bear making this a very successful project. We can only wish that each donor could have been there to see all the smiles on the children's faces that received a teddy bear.

In addition F.O.C.O. was happy to present a $1,000 check to Interfaith Nutrition Network Executive Director Jean Kelly to help families in need on Thanksgiving. F.O.C.O. responded to a News 12 feature which shed light on I.N.N.’s difficulty in providing food for the holiday season – a consequence of our current economic down-turn. F.O.C.O. remembers the I.N.N. every year around Christmastime with both a monetary donation and a visit bringing teddy bears for children of families in need. This year however, with the News 12 spotlight, F.O.C.O. realized that the I.N.N. could use help now, and so, stepped up efforts to help them in their goal of feeding the hungry for Thanksgiving. This donation was made possible thanks to the generosity of the personnel of Nassau District Court and by the hard work of C.O. Mike Riveiro.

"The one organization for all Court Officers"

We would like to thank the following members who helped made this project successful:

 Project coordinator:

 Nancy Puglise

Team leaders:

 Janet Walsh,

 Rene Costello,

 Theresa Pepe,

 Marc Delcielo,

 Jackie Delaney

 and 

Marty Messina.