Community Corner

MEMS and Yorktowne Club Donate to Samaritan Center for Thanksgiving

The clients of the Samaritan Center will reap the benefits of food collection from the local middle school and the Yorktowne Club.

Middle school students and members of the Yorktowne Club  have collected food for the Samaritan Center, the local food pantry which collects food for needy families in Western Monmouth County. 

A seventh grade Social Studies teacher at Delta Community at MEMS, Donna Clemente, came up with the idea for students to donate because she wanted students to take part in something charitable.

Originally, the food collecting was specific to the Delta Community, but then Clemente approached MEMS Principal Robert Williams about allowing the entire student body to participate.

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The school faculty promoted the campaign to collect food for the center and the student council and the National Junior Honor Society also embraced the idea. A competition sparked between the seventh and eighth grade students - which prompted even more food collection.

As of last week, the eighth grade was winning the contest with almost 2,000 non-perishable food items collected, but the seventh grade was not trailing by much.

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“This is the best food drive MEMS has ever had.” the school secretary, Joan Svenningsen, said.

The Yorktowne Club has also worked to donate 25 complete Thanksgiving dinner baskets to the Samaritan Center. The dinner baskets will be parcelled out to  disadvantaged families throughout Manalapan and Englishtown.

The baskets contain all aspects of a traditional Thanksgiving meal, especially the turkey and pies!

Members of the Yorktowne Club donated all of the food within the baskets. They would like to thank Wegmans of Manalapan for donating ten turkeys and Seikei Ryu Ju Jitsu School of Monroe for their contributions.

"I am very proud of my fellow Club members and their families for donating their time and money to help our fellow residents during a time of Thanksgiving," the Chairman of the Thanksgiving Dinner Project, Ron Delsini, said. "The families are kept anonymous and could easily be our friends and/or neighbors."

The President of the Yorktowne Club, Chris Niebling, said, "I am again very proud of our members and the Yorktowne Club. When there is a call for help, in our community, our members continue to answer that call. We have been a strong supporter of the Samaritan Center, since its inception, and the great work they do for our fellow less fortunate residents."


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