The Island Gift of Life Foundation helped Janae Jones find her smile.

Four years ago, Ms. Jones was a shy 15-year-old with a very pronounced overbite, one that made her extremely self-conscious and left her vulnerable to teasing at school. She and her mother, Samone Johnson, sought braces and a complicated surgery to fix it. But the surgery would cost several thousand dollars and would not be covered entirely by insurance, so financially it was out of reach for Ms. Johnson, a single mother of four from East Hampton.

Enter Island Gift of Life, a non-profit organization launched in 2001 that helps patients on the East End cope with major medical issues by providing financial support, transportation, or expertise to help negotiate medical bills with hospitals and doctors. It also supports blood and bone marrow registry drives.

“I used to be so shy and so quiet. I didn’t like to smile as much,” said Ms. Jones, now a bubbly 19-year-old student at Suffolk Community College. “The surgery was a confidence booster, definitely.”

Ms. Johnson, who works as a paraprofessional at East Hampton High School and volunteers as an emergency medical technician, raved about the foundation. “For some of the things kids need and parents can’t afford, this organization is always willing to contribute something,” said Ms. Johnson, who said the Kiwanis Club also contributed financially. “This surgery has 100 percent changed my daughter’s life.”

The foundation was conceived by Cheryl Hannabury, a Shelter Island resident who had non-Hodgkins lymphoma. She envisioned an organization that could help patients cope with financial obstacles and other challenges so they could focus on their treatment. Ms. Hannabury died in 2002 after her illness progressed, but the Island Gift of Life Foundation has been able to continue its mission. Today, it has expanded beyond Shelter Island to also help people in the towns of East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold.

For Pat Corbey of Sag Harbor, the foundation helps her pay for medication each month and transportation costs to her doctor appointments in Stony Brook. Ms. Corbey, 59, has third-degree renal failure and a liver condition and had an aneurysm. She is unable to work, and her husband, Thomas, works two jobs to make ends meet.

“My medication was averaging over $300 a month, and it got to the point where it was so outrageous that I wasn’t taking my medicine like I should,” she said. “The [organization] found out about me and asked me if I would like to have some help. I just sat there and cried. I thought, ‘Somebody here really cared.’ ”

Not only has the Island Gift of Life Foundation helped many South Fork patients, but it also has a strong connection to the John M. Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton. Two of the foundation’s board members, Kate Collum and Robin Streck, and a patient liaison, Lorna Cook, are teachers there. Mr. Corbey is employed as a custodian there, which is how the foundation learned of his wife’s illnesses. Jess Stainback, a teaching assistant at the elementary school who is from Montauk, is another one of the organization’s beneficiaries. Ms. Stainback said the organization approached her after learning about her 17-year-old son’s diagnosis with a rare neurological condition, for which a 13-day trip to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio was necessary last year. Island Gift of Life helped pay for the travel costs.

“I was just so thankful for that. . . . It was a critical trip,” Ms. Stainback said.

Ms. Cook, who is a cancer survivor herself, said she does not know of an instance in which the foundation has turned away someone in need.

“I often think, ‘How do you ever repay those people?’ They don’t want to be repaid,” she said. “They’re not expecting anything back. They just want to see you happy and worry-free.”

Since its inception, the Island Gift of Life Foundation has given more than $480,000 to meet patients’ needs and finance blood and bone marrow drives. The organization is entirely volunteer-run, so every dollar raised goes to helping someone. Its annual fund-raising gala is planned for Saturday at 6 p.m. at the Ram’s Head Inn on Shelter Island. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased online or at the door on the night of the event. It will include an open bar, food, music, raffles, and a live auction. More information can be found on the organization’s website at islandgiftof­life.org.

Ken Lewis, the president of its board of directors, said the Island Gift of Life Foundation has been struggling to distinguish itself from all the various charities and organizations that exist on the East End.

“You can kind of get lost in the shuffle a little bit. We need to get out there and get our name out there with people,” Mr. Lewis said. “That remains to be a challenge, letting people know that we’re here to help them.”

He said the board of directors simply believes in giving back. The board includes doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, and financial professionals in addition to friends of the late Ms. Hannabury.

“Everyone takes this extremely seriously,” said Mr. Lewis, who knew Ms. Hannabury for many years before her death. “It’s been extremely rewarding to be involved with this, and I’m very proud of what we do.”

An Oyster Bay man is facing criminal charges in East Hampton Town Justice Court after allegedly erecting a hard-rock revetment on Soundview Drive in Montauk without permits.

Richard Appell, a former trustee of the village of Oyster Bay Cove and a controlling partner in Odin Marine Inc., a shipping brokerage house, installed the revetment at 180 Soundview Drive between November 2013 and December 2015, according to documents on file with the court.

Mr. Appell and his wife, Donna, purchased the 1.5-acre shorefront property for $2.2 million in the summer of 2012. Though it was spared the worst of Superstorm Sandy, which hit that October, damage to the shoreline was extensive, and in May 2013 the Building Department granted the couple a permit to install “emergency erosion control sandbags,” considered by the Planning Department to be a “soft solution” to protect the bluff from erosion.

Brian Frank, the Planning Department’s chief environmentalist, first visited the property six months later, in November 2013, after Mr. Appell sought a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals to construct a “coastal erosion control structure” — a steel bulkhead and a stone armor revetment. Such a structure is considered a “hard solution” by the town. As part of his inspection, Mr. Frank photographed the shoreline. “There was no erosion control structure on the property,” he stated in an affidavit.

The 2013 application for the hardened revetment was never completed, and fell by the wayside. The permit for the sandbags was renewed the following year.

In December 2015, Mr. Frank was called upon to inspect the neighboring site just to the east, where there is a steel bulkhead fronted by huge boulders, protecting the shoreline of several properties on Captain Kidd’s Path. Aerial photos taken over the past few years appear to show that the bulkhead created a scouring effect on the beachfront and bluff where the Appell house sits.

Mr. Frank reported that in the course of his December visit, “I observed a stone armor revetment with nylon netting and fill placed along the shoreline of 180 Soundview Drive.” Knowing it had not been there in 2013, he photographed it, and brought the photos to the attention of the town’s code enforcement division. After several attempts, officers of the division were able to serve the Appells with a court summons.

Mr. Appell is charged with three misdemeanors: building a structure without a building permit, lacking a certificate of occupancy, and failing to obtain a special permit for such a structure. He could be sentenced to up to six months in jail on each charge, though such sentences are extremely rare in zoning violation cases. Arraignment is scheduled for March 14.

Though it may not seem possible, this winter will someday come to an end. An early indicator is Friday’s announcement by the Amagansett Chamber of Commerce that it has named a grand marshal to lead the eighth annual Am O’Gansett Parade, a lighthearted take on St. Patrick’s Day festivities that is scheduled for March 12.

The Amagansett Library, which is marking its 100th anniversary, will lead this year’s parade, which will start at 12:01 p.m. and conclude a few minutes later. The parade, whose organizers claim it is the world’s shortest, begins on Main Street outside Mary’s Marvelous and proceeds to the Mobil gas station at the corner of Main Street and Indian Wells Highway.

“They are celebrating their centennial this year,” Joi Jackson Perle, the director of the chamber of commerce, said of the library. “Their grand marshal duties are another part of that yearlong celebration.”

Plans for post-parade activities are still being developed. During and after the event, the chamber will sell commemorative mugs and T-shirts, a practice introduced last year to support its initiatives.

The library follows Michael Clark, the owner of now-defunct Crossroads Music at Amagansett Square, who with his sons led the festivities as grand marshal during last year’s rain-soaked parade. Students and faculty of the Amagansett School led the 2014 march.

The Bridgehampton Fire District, which bought the building on Main Street that once housed the Pulver Gas Company in 2011 for $3.9 million, will tear it down by the end of the month. While it is in a prominent place in downtown Bridgehampton, across from the Post Office and Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church, the district’s fire commissioners have said it is not architecturally significant, is in unsafe condition, and that it would not be financially feasible to restore it to meet current codes and standards. John O’Brien, one of the commissioners, called it an eyesore.

 “The building can’t be saved,” Mr. O’Brien said, adding that previous owners had not maintained the building structurally. “The floors are shot,” and asbestos, which has since been removed, was found. “It’s actually cheaper to tear it down and get rid of it.” 

Last month, the district awarded a bid of $129,000 to Keith Grimes, a Bridgehampton contractor, to demolish the building. The district is waiting for PSEG-Long Island to certify that the electricity has been disconnected before finalizing necessary permits, according to Bruce Dombkowski, the chairman of the board of fire commissioners. “We’ll proceed to knock down as soon as we get that. Hopefully two or three weeks,” he said. The property will then be graded and planted with grass and a post-and-rail fence will be installed facing the street.

“We’re aware members of the community have been concerned with the empty building and the future of the property, and are happy we can now move ahead to improve both Main Street in Bridgehampton and the quality of the Fire Department’s service,” said Ray Topping, who was, until Jan. 4, the chairman of the board.  

At 2339 Montauk Highway, with more than 95 feet of street frontage, the building was put up in 1921 as a Studebaker car dealership. The company’s seal can still be seen etched into second-story concrete. The back of the property, which is .64 of an acre, abuts the firehouse, on School Street.

The district has no immediate plans for the property. “Eventually, we’re going to have to put up another building,” Mr. O’Brien said. “What kind of building, how big a building, and when? We don’t know.”

The district is still paying off a 15-year bond with a 3.5-percent interest rate that costs taxpayers about $26 a year per $1 million of assessed value. Mr. Dombkowski said it was likely that the district would wait until the bond has been paid off before constructing a new building. “I probably won’t be there when they do that,” he said.

In a referendum in October 2011, voters approved the $3.9 million purchase. The commissioners at the time did not have clear plans for the property, with Pulver maintaining its lease for another two years. Earlier that year, the district shelved an $8 to $9 million renovation and expansion plan for the firehouse after it failed to gain community support. Later, in 2014, voters approved a $1 million renovation, which was completed last year.

The district covers 27 square miles, including Bridgehampton and Sagaponack as well as areas of Wainscott and Water Mill. The department answers more than 1,000 calls a year.

No sooner had the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals denied an application on Friday for an expanded house at 44 Huntting Lane that would have violated a zoning amendment enacted last year, than it considered another request to overrule the amendment, which prohibits cellars from extending beyond a house’s ground-floor exterior walls.

At a hearing on Jan. 8, neighbors had called the proposed 10,561-square-foot house on Huntting Lane a mega-mansion. The application called for 27.7 percent more floor area and 23 percent more lot coverage than allowed by the code, as well as a cellar that not only extended beyond the exterior wall but contained a two-lane bowling alley, living room with fireplace, two guest bedroom suites, a recreation room, theater, powder room, and steam shower. 

Once again, in a hearing on Friday, the amendment regarding the extension of cellars was at issue. Jordan Roth, who owns and is restoring a house at 18 Lee Avenue, appealed a code enforcement officer’s interpretation regarding cellars and requested a variance to permit 423 square feet of the cellar to be below a screened porch, beyond the house’s ground floor. Mr. Roth is the president of Jujamcyn Theatres, which oversees five Broadway theaters, at which such plays as “The Book of Mormon” and “Jersey Boys” have been produced.

Mr. Roth had received a building permit in May indicating that the house’s mechanical equipment would be under the ground floor. But, Lenny Ackerman, an attorney representing Mr. Roth, said the construction crew “had to dig down substantially to create the basement space” and in the process created the additional 423 square feet below the porch and beyond the house’s exterior wall.

The project’s mechanical engineer, Craig Reitmann of the Weber and Grahn air-conditioning and heating company, told the board that loud mechanical equipment could be housed in a vault in that remote section of basement under the porch.

 Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, said none of several applications seeking an exception to the amendment regarding cellars had been approved. In addition, because the remainder of the cellar was  to contain staff rooms, multiple bedrooms, a gym, a screening room, a massage room, wine storage, and a room to house a model train, he said space for mechanical equipment could be found that was in compliance.

“The intent of the law was to reduce density,” Mr. Newbold said, adding that the existing house is three stories high. “They felt it was adequate for their needs when they got a building permit in May 2015. This is really to get additional square footage.” He asked if it would it be feasible to install mechanical equipment within the basement space that is under the house. “Anything is feasible,” was Mr. Reitmann’s reply.

The board indicated unanimous opposition to setting a precedent for the convenience of mechanical engineering, and the hearing was closed.

In addition to denying the application for the Huntting Lane house, the board announced five other decisions. Ina Garten, the author and host of the Food Network program “Barefoot Contessa,” was granted a variance for a generator within the required front-yard setback at 21 Buell Lane on the conditions that a “level three” enclosure, which has substantial sound-attenuating capability, be installed and that it not be used except in power outages and during a midweek 20-minute test.

The board granted Leslie Chao a variance to allow construction of a window well within the side-yard setback at 104 Pantigo Road. The variance will allow completion of a recreation room in the basement.

Richard Reiss was granted an 87-square-foot variance to allow construction of a 5,297-square-foot house at 44 La Forest Lane. The planning board had approved a lot-line modification last year allowing 3,000 square feet to be transferred from an adjacent property in order to allow the proposed house to be built without a variance. The village board later amended the zoning code, however, which further limited the maximum allowable floor area on the lot, rendering plans for the house noncompliant.

Barry Rosenstein, who owns a condominium unit at the Village Towne Houses at 71 Gingerbread Lane, was granted variances to allow air-conditioning equipment installed by a previous owner to remain within required side and rear-yard setbacks, and to permit lot coverage that is 467 square feet greater than the maximum permitted. The air-conditioning unit takes up only 16 square feet, with the townhouse, a brick patio, and other minor structures accounting for the additional coverage.

Thomas Schaub of 75 Toilsome Lane was granted variances to allow existing walkways, stone stairs, and stepping-stones to remain within required setbacks.

Minerva Perez has been named to the new position of executive director at Organizacion Latino-Americana of Long Island, or OLA.

Founded in 2002, OLA is a not-for-profit organization that promotes social, economic, cultural, and educational development for the region’s Latino communities.

Previously, Ms. Perez was director of residential and transitional services at the Retreat, the domestic violence services and education organization serving the East End. She began working for OLA as a volunteer in 2008, appearing before the Suffolk County Legislature to oppose anti-immigrant initiatives. She also helped to double the size of OLA’s film festival, which is now in its 13th year, and produced and directed the only Spanish-language production of “The Vagina Monologues” on the South Fork.

OLA’s mission, Ms. Perez said on Monday, is to “help build a stronger community: Latinos building bridges between Latinos and non-Latinos.” The group also provides English as a second language and computer literacy classes for Spanish-speaking residents, leadership workshops for adults, arts education for children, and educational forums on health, safety, and fiscal and legal interests.

“This is not a separatist or exclusionary thing,” Ms. Perez said. “It’s all about bringing groups together and sharing what’s so wonderful about all our communities, and truly changing the discourse on what it means to be Latino on the East End.”

While some UpIsland organizations offer information and services to Latinos, “the East End remains a challenging geographic location,” she said. On the South Fork, wealthy residents and recent immigrants from various countries inhabit the same communities. “The biggest challenge that remains is to unify people,” Ms. Perez said, “especially folks that have been here for a while and have their own rich experiences from wherever they’re coming from, and those that are new here. Each of these countries represents such a different cultural viewpoint, understanding, sometimes a different dialect. To call everyone Latino or Hispanic sometimes rankles, and I want to remain sensitive to that. We need to celebrate the unique qualities of each, but we need to unify.”

Representation in government and on appointed boards, she said, is a priority. “When we have the numbers that we have on the East End, it’s not correct if you don’t have equal representation. There’s a whole different perspective. Without that you don’t have as healthy a local community. What’s going on at East Hampton Town Hall, Southampton’s, Riverhead’s? What are the unheard needs of the community members?”

She pointed to East Hampton Town’s newly formed Latino advisory committee as a step in the right direction. “These are true leaders,” she said. “This is their initiative. Stuff like that — homegrown East Hampton folks — is exciting to see.”

Immigration policy and affordable housing are priorities for the South Fork’s Latino population, Ms. Perez said. “OLA will stay connected to those,” but will also “shine light in different directions, and maintain and create alliances with other organizations. The challenge is, how do we work together? We don’t have to fight over anything, we need to work together right now. There is so much to be done.”

Sag Harbor Village police stood by just in case, and one person angrily addressing the village board over proposed residential zoning code changes came close to being hauled away from the podium, but feedback was largely positive at a meeting last week on proposals that include tying the gross floor area of residential structures to lot sizes.

In the face of a growing trend toward bigger houses on smaller lots, the village established a temporary moratorium in July on construction of most new houses and major improvements to existing ones; since then the board has been working on a range of code revisions. On Jan. 27, it detailed those proposals and heard questions and concerns from the public during a jam-packed meeting at the Sag Harbor Firehouse.

Rich Warren of Inter-Science Research Associates, the consultant who analyzed all 1,607 residential lots in Sag Harbor for the village, explained his findings at the meeting and discussed how they led to changes under consideration, the most controversial of which were new setbacks for swimming pools and the floor-area limit.

Sag Harbor is the only village on the South Fork that does not have limits on gross floor area. Using Mr. Warren’s analysis, the board came up with a ratio that allows for slightly bigger houses than are allowed in most neighboring villages and towns because, village officials said, Sag Harbor has unusually small lots by comparison. The proposed limits would allow 8 square feet of gross floor area for every 100 feet of lot area. 

Under current zoning, a lot of 5,000 square feet or less could see a 2,000-square-foot house. That will not change under the new ordinance, though other villages, like Sagaponack and North Haven, allow only a 1,500-square-foot house on a property of that size. “Two thousand square feet is actually about 450 square feet higher than the median house size in the village. Again, we were trying to find the balance,” Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village attorney (also a state assemblyman), said at the meeting.

For each additional 5,000 square feet in lot area, another 400 square feet in floor area is allowed. For example, a 15,000-square-foot lot could see a 6,000-square-foot house under current zoning, but the proposed zoning changes would allow a gross floor area of only 2,800 square feet on a lot that size.

In East Hampton and Sagaponack Villages the cap would be 2,500 square feet. Southampton Village allows houses of up to 3,300 square feet on a 15,000-square-foot lot.

“I think the formula is in the ballpark. Obviously it could be adjusted one way or the other and it could still be consistent with the purposes or the intent the village has,” Mr. Thiele said by phone this week.

Mayor Sandra Schroeder said she is considering an increase to the gross floor area ratio, but said does not think it should go up by more than 250 square feet.

Even before the meeting was held, village officials had reconsidered their proposal on swimming pool setbacks. Now, pools must be 15 feet from the side property line. Sag Harbor had originally proposed doubling that to 30 feet, but Mr. Warran announced at the meeting that the pool setbacks would remain unchanged.

The village will eliminate a restriction on having pools in the front yard, first established in the code in 1968. It is also considering a requirement that swimming pools have drywells for decanting of water and wants to mandate chlorine-reducing sanitation systems to alleviate groundwater contamination. The village had originally proposed that pools be two feet above the water table. It abandoned that, but will still require that they be some distance above the water table.

“From the emails I’ve gotten, it was clear, concise, and thank you so much,” Ms. Schroeder said of the tenor of the communications. “I got some nasty-grams at the same time.”

All 100 information packets made up for last week’s meeting had been picked up, indicating the size and interest of the crowd. “If the fire marshal had walked in he would have been legally obligated to kick people out,” she said, saying she was happy so many people attended.

Mr. Thiele said the village has several weeks’ worth of work before the local laws can be formally introduced for public hearings. “We all kind of collated what we heard, and put together a list of maybe 15 issues for the village board to look at,” he said. “The next step is really for the village board to go through those comments and decide what, if any, changes they want to make and give us some direction so we can draft modifications to the local laws.”

“The ball is in the village board’s court now to make some policy changes,” he said.

Ms. Schroeder said she is hopeful the fine-tuning will be done in time for the board’s March 8 meeting, so the changes can be noticed for a hearing on April 12. That timetable would allow the code changes to be adopted before the current moratorium expires.

An application for a 10,561-square-foot house in the Huntting Lane Historic District is “exactly the type of project the village had in mind” last year when it enacted new limits on floor area and lot coverage, the chairman of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals said on Friday.

Frank Newbold’s blunt assessment of the proposed alterations and additions at 44 Huntting Lane, owned by Kean Development Company of Southampton, was followed by a litany of complaint from residents of the street’s 12 houses. They were even more direct, calling the proposed project “a spec house that is totally out of character,” the street’s “first mega-mansion,” and “a giant spaceship dropped among horse-drawn carriages.”

The proposal would need variance relief for 27.7 percent more floor area than the law allows, 23 percent more lot coverage, and a cellar that would extend beyond the exterior walls of the ground floor, also prohibited by a recent zoning code amendment. The subterranean space would include a two-lane bowling alley, a living room with fireplace, two guest bedroom suites, a recreation room, theater, powder room, and steam shower.

“It’s a big house,” Mr. Newbold said dryly.

Jon Tarbet, an attorney representing the applicant, agreed that the application was, “on its face, not the type you look favorably upon,” but asked the board to consider circumstances he called unique.

Kean Development Company purchased the property three years ago, Mr. Tarbet said, with a building permit already in place. While continuing to pay the fees required to extend that permit, the applicant created a new set of plans for the house, which the design review board approved, and applied for a building permit for the revised design. While that application was pending, Mr. Tarbet said, the zoning code was amended with the new floor-area and coverage formulas. The applicant was then “deemed to not have a vested right,” he said; the original building permit was revoked and the new permit application rejected.

Mr. Tarbet pointed out that the parcel, at 95,652 square feet, is three times the average lot size on Huntting Lane. “If you were to subdivide, you could — depending on whether you did two or three lots — get eleven or twelve thousand square feet of homes,” he said.

Larry Hillel, a board member, noted that the property is for sale. “It is for profit,” Mr. Tarbet said. The applicant has spent $600,000 on the project to date, he added.

Mr. Newbold detailed the substantial variance relief required for the floor area, lot coverage, and cellar, along with the amenities to be included in the latter. “As described, it would be the largest house on the block by far,” he said. “The intention of the law was to control the size of houses, particularly on these sensitive streets.”

“It’s not our preference to subdivide, but . . . if you’re trying to get a return on your investment, that’s the logical next step,” Mr. Tarbet responded. “He’s already been told by real estate agents that he could get more money by subdividing.”

“As far as scale, it’s not going to appear any bigger; in fact it will appear smaller” than typical Huntting Lane houses, he said, some of which are three stories high and larger than would be permitted under present zoning code.

After five neighbors spoke in forceful opposition to the application, one of whom read a statement from residents who are abroad, the property’s owner stood to address their criticism.

“I’m not here to destroy your street,” John Kean said. “We spent a lot of time and a lot of money trying to be in harmony” with the neighborhood, “understanding that we’re building a larger house than is typically built on that street. But we also have three times the lot size.” It was unfair, he said,  to deny him a 10,000-square-foot house on a 2.2-acre lot when one neighbor who opposes his application has a 6,000-square-foot house on a .74-acre parcel. “Fairness is important,” he said. “I’ve spent $600,000.”

Lys Marigold, a board member, suggested that his expenditure was “the cost of doing business.” “That’s a very unfair statement,” Mr. Kean shot back. “We take risks that are calculated. We don’t take risks that we’re going to have it pulled out from underneath us when we’ve gone that far down the line and spent that much money, and adhere to all of your codes. Fairness is something to be considered here.”

“As a businessman, I have an alternative,” he warned. “Either you can grant this approval and we can go ahead and build this house, or we’re probably going to have to subdivide,” which would result in more overall floor area than the proposed structure.

“I think the house is too big,” said John McGuirk of the board. His colleagues agreed, and the hearing was closed. A determination will be announced at a future meeting.

Determinations

The board issued eight determinations on Friday. Steven Spielberg and his accountant and trustee, Gerald Breslauer, were granted wetlands permits to allow removal of phragmites and other nonnative species, and to allow the removal of an area of lawn and the planting of a 25-foot-wide buffer of native grasses, at 110 and 116 Apaquogue Road respectively.

The board granted variances to allow a 360-square-foot expansion of the Devi Kroell store, at 23 Main Street, without the store providing additional parking spaces as required by code, provided that the applicant pay $60,000 to the village’s off-street parking trust fund and obtain site plan approval before a building permit is issued, as well as remove interior walls that created two bedrooms in an attic, which in the future must be used only for storage.

Andrew Wettenhall of 65 Toilsome Lane was granted variances to construct a swimming pool, pool equipment, and a generator within required setbacks on the condition that sound-baffling materials and vegetative screening are installed and two arbors are removed.

The unnamed owner of 8 Cooper Lane was granted variances to allow 232 square feet of coverage over the maximum, to allow a porch to be converted into habitable space within the front-yard setback, and to convert a garage to a pool house within required setbacks. A request to allow the installation of a swimming pool dry well within the side-yard setback was denied.

The board granted variances to the estate of Laura Roberts to allow the 40,100-square-foot lot at 19 Pondview Lane, which is in a district that was upzoned in 1987 to require 80,000-square-foot lots, to be eligible for a building permit for a single-family dwelling. 

William McCaffrey was granted variances to permit a generator to be installed, and an air-conditioner to remain, within required setbacks at 19 Cooper Lane. Thomas and Cynthia Pai were allowed to keep air-conditioning units and two sets of stairs within required setbacks at 7 Sherrill Road.

At the Whalebone apartment complex in East Hampton, January is always the “hardest month for collecting rents, because everybody tries to keep up with the Joneses and get presents for their kids,” said Gerry Mooney, manager of the affordable apartment complex. 

For many families all over the town, the extra expenses that come with the holidays can make it tough to make ends meet come the end of this month and beginning of the next. With its Toys for Tots program, now in its 30th year, the Kiwanis Club of East Hampton does its part to ease the stress on parents’ wallets and give children a brighter Christmas. 

“I have 27 single moms here, and it’s a lot on them,” Mr. Mooney said. “If you can save them 50 or 60 bucks, that’s a lot.” 

This year, the Kiwanis Club, with help from East Hampton High School’s Key Club and more than two dozen individuals, organizations, and businesses, collected over 1,000 new unwrapped toys to be distributed to children in need around East Hampton Town. 

Kiwanis worked with organizations like the East Hampton and Springs Food Pantries and the Lions Club, and managers of affordable apartment complexes like Whalebone and the Accabonac Apartments, to identify families with children 12 and under who could use a little extra help on Christmas. Toys were donated at a number of locations across town and taken to the high school, where they were sorted on Monday afternoon for delivery to a number of collection points. The goal is to provide four or five gifts for each child on a list compiled in advance. 

“It’s quite a job,” said Dru Raley of the Springs Food Pantry, who helps put together the list of Springs families who will benefit. The Springs Food Pantry has 80 families a week coming in for food, and about a third of them have children 12 and under. The East Hampton Food Pantry, she said, serves some 300 families a week. 

The rewards for those who lend a hand in this effort are many, but one of the biggest, said Raymond Tirado, a resident manager at the Accabonac Apartments, “is when you see a child with a big smile.” 

“It’s a lot of fun, and it’s great seeing all the different organizations that recognize it’s such a great project,” said Louis Profera, who has overseen the Toys for Tots program for Kiwanis for 18 years. 

On Monday he was at the high school with the organization’s president, Henry Uihlein, as Key Club members sorted toys, matched them with individual families, and bagged them for delivery. The kids, he said, managed to do in two hours after school what it might have taken days to do. Santa’s elves could not have done better. 

If you’ve already made a gingerbread house for the holidays, you might not want to take a bite of it just yet. The folks at the Montauk Playhouse Community Center are hosting a gingerbread contest with two divisions, one for adults and one for kids 17 and under.

Any type of edible structure will qualify, such as a train or Hansel and Gretel’s cottage in the woods. The entire piece must be edible. There is a chance that some of the creative goodies will be displayed in a sunny spot, so be careful that you don’t use candies that will melt. Entries must be freestanding and attached to a sturdy base no bigger than 24 inches by 18 inches. The base must be concealed by an edible product.

Those registering with the Playhouse in advance will receive 10 percent off a supply of candy at the Candied Anchor in downtown Montauk. A registration fee of $10 will be charged.

To be eligible for judging by the public, all entries must be delivered to the Playhouse in completed form by Wednesday, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. The houses, planes, and automobiles will be on display through Dec. 20 and returned on Dec. 21.

Winners, who will receive gift certificates to local businesses, will be announced at a cookie-exchange party at the Playhouse on Dec. 18 at 4 p.m.