Sussex County Stars help the community through tough times

Last year, brother and sister team Karen and Rob Carney started a youth softball league, the Sussex County Stars, to encourage community service. Last fall, before the pandemic began, the league conducted a very successful school supply drive.

This year, the league has been busy helping frontline workers and families in need get through the hard times of COVID-19. The Stars decided to create T-shirts, with “Safe at Home” on them, for sale as a fundraiser.

“The term can be seen as having two meanings, the softball team and also being safe at home during the quarantine,” said Karen. “Because of some really great and generous people, we raised over $1,000. With this money, we were able to give back to the community around us in Sussex County.”

The league patronized a number of other local businesses while helping medical and police personnel and local families. To create the shirts, the league used the family business of one of its players. The league used the money they raised to feed the staff at Newton Medical Center. They purchased food from Cravin Thai, a restaurant in Hamburg.

“We also hand-delivered pizza to the Franklin, Hamburg, Ogdensburg, and Hardyston Police Departments,” Karen said. “We used two local restaurants, Tony’s Pizza and Pasta Restaurant and Mamma Mia’s Pizzeria. We were also able to donate food, diapers, and wipes to Project Self-Sufficiency.

“We wanted to do something to help those on the frontline and we also realized that there were small businesses struggling, so this worked perfectly and it allowed us to give back to the community. It was really great to see the community come together to support frontline workers and small businesses in need.”