Iona College Provides Thanksgiving Baskets for Over 150 Families in Need
Every November, Iona students, faculty and staff look forward to giving local families a chance to celebrate a happy Thanksgiving by providing a basket full of food and good wishes.
From Left: Faith Krefft, assistant director of Service and Immersion, Office of Mission and Ministry; Seamus Carey, Ph.D., president, Iona College; Tamia Reyes, ’21; Noreen Carey; Carl Procario-Foley, director, Iona College Office of Mission and Ministry.
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. – Every November, Iona students, faculty and staff look forward to giving local families a chance to celebrate a happy Thanksgiving by providing a basket full of food and good wishes.
The annual tradition of the Thanksgiving Basket Collection brings together student organizations and clubs, athletics teams, administrative offices and academic departments in a campus-wide effort to create cheerful baskets to be distributed in the community.
This year, Iona donated more than 150 baskets through three organizations: HOPE Community Services in New Rochelle, Greyston Foundation Child & Youth Services in Westchester County, and Abraham House in the Bronx.
“As members of an Edmund Rice Christian Brothers institution, we have an important incentive to share generously with our neighbors at Thanksgiving,” said Tamia Reyes, ’21, an adolescence education major and a campus minister. “So many thoughtful contributions from our Iona community are going to give local families a Thanksgiving meal this year. We distributed more than 150 baskets for families who may have needed the extra support this holiday season, and seeing this outcome makes us proud to be giving Gaels.”
The Iona community gathered on November 25 in the Mulcahy Gymnasium for a moving blessing of the baskets, after which students packed the offerings into vans for delivery that night.
Helping families in need is one of the many ways the Iona College community reaches out to offer compassion and service. Iona College students spent nearly 90,000 hours volunteering during 2018-19 school year.
ABOUT IONA
Founded in 1940, Iona University is a master's-granting private, Catholic, coeducational institution of learning in the tradition of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers. Iona's 45-acre New Rochelle campus and 28-acre Bronxville campus are just 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. With a total enrollment of nearly 4,000 students and an alumni base of more than 50,000 around the world, Iona is a diverse community of learners and scholars dedicated to academic excellence and the values of justice, peace and service. Iona is highly accredited, offering undergraduate degrees in liberal arts, science and business administration, as well as Master of Arts, Master of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees and numerous advanced certificate programs. Iona students enjoy small class sizes, engaged professors and a wide array of academic programs across the School of Arts & Science; LaPenta School of Business; NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences; and Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Iona is widely recognized in prestigious rankings, including The Princeton Review’s 2025 national list of “The Best 390 Colleges” and The Wall Street Journal/College Pulse’s “2024 Best Colleges in America,” which ranked Iona at #66 in the nation overall and #8 in the nation among Catholic schools. Iona’s LaPenta School of Business is also accredited by AACSB International, a recognition awarded to just six percent of business schools worldwide. In addition, The Princeton Review recognized Iona’s on-campus MBA program as a “Best Business School for 2023.” Iona also offers a fully online MBA program for even greater flexibility. In July 2021, Iona announced the establishment of the NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences, which is now principally located on Iona’s Bronxville campus in collaboration with NewYork-Presbyterian. Connecting to its Irish heritage, the University also recently announced it is expanding abroad with a new campus in County Mayo, Ireland. A school on the rise, Iona officially changed its status from College to University on July 1, 2022, reflecting the growth of its academic programs and the prestige of an Iona education.