Your Neighbors Need Your Help

Hurricane Irene has left local emergency food supplies low–at a time when food pantries and soup kitchens already were stretched thin.

Local food agencies like Elijah’s Promise in New Brunswick, The here in East Brunswick and and others need our help to help our neighbors make it from day to day and week to week. This weekend, the Mayor David Stahl's helped put a dent in some of the need.

Patch will be working with local food pantries and soup kitchens in the coming months to raise their profiles in the community and enlist community support for their missions. We will be hosting events and lending our site to the groups fighting hunger in an effort to keep the issue—one of the most important facing Americans today—squarely within the public eye.

“In central N.J. and across the nation,” reports Elijah’s Promise, “the numbers of people facing ‘food insecurity’—those without an assured ability to acquire nutritious foods in socially acceptable ways-- are growing. One in seven Americans are considered ‘food insecure,’ the highest number in decades.”

Nationally, according to the New Brunswick soup kitchen, there are 49.1 million people who live in food insecure households—a terrifying 35.6 percent increase from the 36.2 million in 2007. About one in 10 New Jersey households are food insecure.

“In central N.J., those in need are our own neighbors—senior citizens on fixed incomes, single-parent families, the unemployed, and the working poor—who struggle to make ends meet,” Elijah’s Promise writes on its website. “They are young and old, living in families or alone.”

And this was before the hurricane hit.

"One of our workforce development program participants, a single mom with four children, now has a partially collapsed ceiling and other water damage and has no other place to stay,” says Carolyn Biondi, interim executive director for the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton. “We are working to help her get necessary repairs made and to connect her with emergency housing."

The organization—and all of the others—desperately need both food and monetary donations to help them continue to serve their growing client list. The economy, after all, is showing now signs of turning around.

"As we are all too aware, Hurricane Irene caused major disruption and for some families, dislocation in Mercer County,” says Biondi says. “Our low-income neighbors across the county will need to replenish food supplies after power outages, so food donations will be greatly appreciated.”

Consider making a contribution to or volunteering with any of the following organizations:

CRISIS ROOM AT ALDERSGATE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

Site: 568 Ryders Lane, East Brunswick, NJ 08816
Phone: 732-257-9920
Email: aldersgateumc@att.net
Hours: Pantry - Tues & Fri: 1-3pm
Clothing and Household Goods - Mon morning
Contact: Diane Hutchins
This site provides a pantry, rental and utility assistance for those with a referral, clothing and household goods.
Food Needs: non-perishables
Volunteer Needs: Contact site.
Special Needs: funding, clothing, household goods

DEPARTMENT OF RECREATION, PARKS AND COMMUNITY SERVICES

Site: East Brunswick Department of Recreation, 350 Dunhams Corner Road.

Phone: 732-390-6797.

Needs: Peanut butter, jelly, brown rice, tuna fish, macaroni and cheese, canned fruits, meats, stew, vegetables, pastas, paper products, toiletries, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, baby supplies and diapers and wipes. Please donate canned and packaged goods only, no glass, and check the expiration date before donating.

ELIJAH'S PROMISE

Site: 18 Neilson Street New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Phone: 732-545-9002
Email: lfinston@elijahspromise.net (Lisanne Finston)
dlapp@elijahspromise.net (Diana Lapp) 
Website: www.elijahspromise.org. www.elijahspromise.net 
Hours: Mon-Fri: 8am-7pm; Sat & Sun: 10am-5pm
Contact: Lisanne Finston, Executive Director (extension 111)
Diana Lapp, Donations and Volunteer Coordinator (extension 117)
This site provides a soup kitchen, clothing, health and services outreach for people with HIV/AIDS.
Food Needs: meats, staples, non-perishables
Volunteer Needs: Contact site.
Special Needs: paper supplies

JEWISH FAMILY and VOCATIONAL SERVICES of MIDDLESEX COUNTY

Site: 32 Ford Avenue, Milltown, NJ 08850
Phone: 732-777-1940/609-395-7979

Website: www.jfvs.org
Hours: Wednesday: 9AM-9PM; Monday, Tuesday and Thursday: 9AM-5:30PM; Friday: 9AM-3PM.
Contact: Intake office for appointments
This site provides a Kosher food pantry, social services, Kosher Meal on Wheels.Immigration and Refuge services, counseling, support groups, career center, women's center.
Food Needs: pasta, pasta sauce, rice, soup, jelly, peanut butter, dry milk, cereal
Volunteer Needs: pantry organizer, shopper

Volunteer Requirements: varies with job; teens to adults 
Special Needs: funding

SALVATION ARMY

Site: 287 Handy Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08903
Phone: 732-545-1477
Email: jeanette_lugo@use.salvationarmy.org
Hours: Office - Mon-Fri: 9am-5pm

Food Pantry for Emergency cases ONLY: Mon, Wed, Fri 9am-11am (need photo ID, address verification and birth certificates for minors.
Contact: Captain Domingo Urban or Jeanette Lugo
This site provides a food pantry and Sunday services to New Brunswick, East Brunswick, North Brunswick, Highland Park and Milltown.
Food Needs: non-perishables
Volunteer Needs: Contact site.
Special Needs: funding