Malverne Couple Crafts Thousands of Sandwiches During Irene

While most Long Island residents were hunkered down inside their homes waiting for Hurricane Irene to do her worst Sunday, Sonia and Michael Bicocchi headed out into the storm on a mission.

The Malverne couple left their home around 4 a.m. to drive to Mike's workplace inside the Cradle of Aviation in Garden City.

"The highway was completely empty and dark," Michael told Patch. "It was kind of strange to be on Long Island and not see anyone."

So what motivated this couple to leave their home in the middle of the night during a tropical storm?

Believe it or not, it was sandwiches. Yes, sandwiches. Ham-and-cheese, turkey, roast beef and salami sandwiches. That day they, along with 10 others - some of Mike's coworkers at the catering company, Culinart, and their spouses - made 3,000 sandwiches.

They set up 30 to 40 yards of folding tables, split up into different teams and worked throughout the day and well into the night. Even the loss of power around noon Sunday didn't stop them. "We turned the generator on...and opened up painters' lights and spotlights so we could do it in the dark," Michael said.

Then, they bagged them, packed them onto a delivery truck and sent them out to Long Island Power Authority crews, who were also working throughout the storm and its aftermath repairing downed power lines.

"They had to eat," he added.

By the time they finished and returned to their Malverne home, which luckily did have power, it was 11:30 p.m.

After resting up, Mike returned Monday for another 12-hour shift, while Sonia, a teacher, set up her classroom. On Tuesday he helped make an additional 2,300 sandwiches, then 1,500 more on Wednesday and about 1,000 on Thursday. On Friday, he was putting in another 12 hours as he has been doing all week.

Altogether about 30 people pulled off making roughly 10,000 bagged lunches for the workers over the course of the five days.

This is the first time Mike has been called in for a job like this since he started working at the catering company about a year ago.

"Our primary business is catering....we do weddings and bar mitzvahs," he said. However, he explained that Culinart has a history of providing food services during emergency situations and national disasters including 9/11. 

"It was definitely frightening to have to brave the elements, but we made it fun and after awhile, we were just making sandwiches," he said. "It's funny when you deal with that kind of volume."

He does have one request: "I never want to see another brown bag."