ENMS student treats healthcare workers
A student at ENMS, Abby Goldman found a way to treat local healthcare workers during Covid.
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When Covid-19 closed schools mid-March of last year, East Northport middle-schooler Abby Goldman thought she and her friends would be separated from their classmates, routines, and lives together for two weeks, tops.
Those two weeks stretched into months. Then they stretched into a year.
“We all thought we’d be back that following Monday, then nothing happened,” said Abby.
As the news of Covid’s reach and impact became clear, Abby began to think about all the other people affected by the pandemic. She thought especially of the frontline workers putting their own lives at risk to help those in need.
“All I had to deal with was missing my friends,” she said. “They had lives to take care of.”
It wasn’t hard to feel bad about Abby’s situation: an East Northport Middle School student suddenly thrust into virtual learning for far longer than anyone anticipated.
The oldest of three children, Abby has been learning virtually since Covid first hit. As a pre-pandemic sixth grader, she was involved in drama club, band and chorus at school. The school’s Variety Show production of The Addams Family, in which Abby was a dancer/ensemble member, was cancelled just two days before it was set to debut.
“Everything came to a screeching halt. We don’t realize how much we rely on school until it is literally taken away from us,” she said.
In late November, and now a seventh grader, 12-year-old Abby brainstormed ways to help hospital and healthcare workers. She came up with the name Scrubs for Scrubs, and with a little inspiration from her mom’s preference for natural-ingredient products, started making hand scrubs from sugar, coconut oil and essential oils. Abby then partnered with local vendors to provide small meals, snacks, and treats to healthcare workers across Long Island.
Abby and her mom, Elizabeth, at their East Northport home.
The scrubs sell for $15 each; all money raised by the sales goes toward the purchase of these local goods for the healthcare workers.
Scrubs for Scrubs’ first delivery was to Huntington Hospital on New Year’s Eve. Three shifts of doctors, nurses and staff were pleasantly surprised by charcuterie cups from local business Fig + Brie Charcuterie.
Since then, Scrubs for Scrubs has delivered to ICUs, CCUs, emergency rooms, operating rooms and vaccination sites in and around the Town of Huntington, including Huntington Hospital, St. Catherine’s , NYU Langone and LIJ. Healthcare workers have been surprised with burgers from The Harrison in Floral Park, cupcakes from the Cake Don in Carle Place, and a donut table from Gooseberry Grove in Oyster Bay. Other businesses that have supplied frontline workers with some much needed support and sustenance include fellow Long Island small businesses Chonky Cookies, Lake Avenue Gourmet Deli, Anna’s Sweets, The Creativity Bar, Merry’s Sweet Treats, Cakes by So, Spriinks Bake Shop, and Belle’s Sweet Bites.
Throughout Covid, Abby and her friends have struggled to live a somewhat normal life. But Covid has also brought Abby’s family closer together (she lives with her mom, dad, aunt and siblings), and she and her friends have found new ways to “socialize.”
“My family is my support system,” she said. “My friends, too. I FaceTime a lot.”
The pandemic has given Abby the opportunity to do something worthwhile, an opportunity for which she is very grateful. “It’s just such a cool feeling, knowing that you have an impact on a worldwide thing, even if it’s just on Long Island,” she said. “It’s such a good feeling to watch it all play out.”
Right now over 100 Instagram followers (https://www.instagram.com/scru...) get to see Abby’s idea play out on social media, where photos of each delivery are shared. Abby announces new scents on Instagram as well, and reveals some of her scrub-making process. Most of her sales are done over social media (where you can DM her mom, Elizabeth, to place an order) and through word-of-mouth. Popular scents include Orange Crush, which came out around Valentine’s Day, and more recently a new grapefruit scrub.
For Abby and her mom, it’s been a true mother-daughter bonding experience, one of those silver linings of the pandemic. Abby credits her mom, a fourth grade teacher at Jackson Avenue School in Mineola, for helping her get Scrubs for Scrubs off the ground.
“I’ll spend a very good portion of Saturdays and Sundays with her making scrubs and delivering them,” Abby says of her time with her mom. “She’ll work all day as a teacher and then come home and be ready to drive me anywhere I need to go to deliver scrubs.”
“My mom has been helping me so much through this. Without her I could not have done this.”
Elizabeth has marveled at her daughter’s dedication to the cause from the beginning. When Abby received an Amazon gift card for Hanukkah, she used it to purchase the first set of supplies for the scrubs. Abby came up with the name, created the logo and a website, all on her own.
“In the beginning we would make the scrubs together,” said Elizabeth. “Now she makes them independently, tying each one with a ribbon and bagging the finished product. I’m just the driver who takes her to deliver the scrubs. As a teacher, I love to see kids make a difference. When it’s your own child, the feelings of pride cannot be put into words. My heart is full.”
As for Abby, she hopes to continue with Scrubs for Scrubs for a long time. And she wants kids her age to know that doing something good for the community is possible, no matter what your age.
"If you want to make a difference, all you have to do is try to make a difference,” she said. “You might think you might never get anywhere with it, and even if you don’t get recognized… it doesn’t matter, because the feeling is so rewarding in itself.”
