The Catholic Charities of Long Island campus in Amityville hosted a daylong outdoor program promoting good health for recent arrivals to Long Island.

The 100 participants from several countries of origin at the Oct. 11 Health Fair learned about a host of activities such as preparing a healthy salad with lettuce, strawberries, yellow peppers and chickpeas, planting a garden with cilantro and basil, limbering up with stretching exercises and Zumba moves, and painting sponge art masterpieces.

Many adults stepped aboard the Catholic Health Services community outreach mobile clinic for a health screening measuring blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure and BMI (body mass index), and many received a free flu shot. Representatives of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services also shared information. Some guests even won raffle prizes.

Alma Alegria, a program supervisor at Catholic Charities of Long Island, said those at the health fair face the same difficulties she encountered when her family immigrated to the United States from El Salvador four decades ago. “We do our work with compassion and empathy,” she said. “We know what they are going through because we have gone through the journey.”

Alegria is program supervisor of the New York State-funded Ukraine Supplemental Appropriation to Resettlement Agencies (USARA), which helps humanitarian parolees from Ukraine who have arrived in the United States since their country was invaded by Russia in February 2022. Many newly arrived Ukrainians have resettled in Lindenhurst, Copiague and Riverhead.

Several of her employees are recently arrived from Ukraine. Uliana Hyrtsai, an administrative assistant for the USARA program, came to New York from Ukraine two years ago with other members of her family. Catholic Charities helped her to find new friends in the Ukrainian community on Long Island. “Now I want to help other Ukrainians be more comfortable,” she said.

USARA provides employment services, ESL classes and extended case management as well as helping newcomers navigate public services such as housing and health care. Ukraine is just one of many countries today’s refugees hail from. Alegria is happy and proud that the Diocese of Rockville Centre and Catholic Charities are serving all the newcomers well. “Long Island is becoming very diverse, which is something good," Alegria explained. “A richness enhances our way of living.”

The support Catholic Charities offers refugees and other immigrants was modeled by Jesus in Matthew 25:35-40 in his counsel to welcome the stranger. CCLI is one of the providers in the New York State Refugee Health Promotion program.