The Greater Middlesex Conference has launched a league-wide fundraising initiative to help feed Middlesex County families during the coronavirus pandemic.
With more than 850,000 New Jerseyans having filed for unemployment benefits since Gov. Phil Murphy ordered non-essential businesses closed six weeks ago to curb the spread of COVID-19, not only are some families struggling to put food on the table, but local food banks have seen their supplies depleted as social distancing guidelines halted traditional drives for nonperishable food items.
Conference officials are respectfully asking student-athletes and coaches from the league’s 34 member schools to consider donating $1 to MCFOODS, a regional food bank the Middlesex County Freeholders founded nearly three decades ago, which currently operates through the Middlesex County Improvement Authority to serve a network of more than 100 food pantries, soup kitchens and social service agencies.
The Marisa Tufaro Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to assist Middlesex County children in need and one which has received ineffable support from the GMC, has jump started the league’s fundraising effort with a $2,500 donation to MCFOODS and Feeding Middlesex County.
The Middlesex County food pantry needs assistance to replenish its food supply during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The need is just incredible,” said Jennifer Apostol, director of the MCFOODS program. “It’s skyrocketed. Food pantries are inundated with additional requests beyond their regular clientele.”
Monetary donations to benefit MCFOODS on behalf of the GMC are currently being accepted online through a specific link (feedingmiddlesexcounty.org/gmc) at the official website of Feeding Middlesex County, which financially supports organizations that feed the hungry.
Through its partnership with Feeding Middlesex County, MCFOODS is also buying supplies from local distributors, thus monetary donations will help MCFOODS stock its shelves.
Apostol said the coronavirus has “had a tremendous impact” on food pantries, noting MCFOODS was about to start its spring school food drive, its largest such effort of the year and one which several GMC sports programs support, when Murphy ordered schools indefinitely closed statewide.
As a result, approximately 2,000 empty food storage containers are locked up in about 130 schools across the county, Apostol said, noting the spring school food drive would normally generate about 50 tons of food that would help MCFOODS get through the summer months.
Apostol said other sources of food donations, from civic groups and houses of worship, as well as permanent collection sites, such as libraries, have dried up as a result of the coronavirus and Murphy’s accompanying stay-at-home guidelines.
“It’s so heartwarming to see the kindness and generosity of these students,” Apostol said of the GMC’s fundraising initiative. “It means everything to us and will make a tremendous difference to our (food bank) and so many food-insecure residents throughout the county.”
Middlesex County Freeholder and Feeding Middlesex County Board of Director Charles Kenny, noting COVID-19 has also postponed fundraising events that benefit MCFOODS, such as the Walk To End Hunger, said the league’s effort “is going to greatly help” the county food bank replenish its supply.
“Food banks were already working from a deficit to begin with,” Kenny said. “As the economy has turned the way it has and people are in this sort of holding pattern, waiting to see when, or if, they can get back to work, they are relying more on the food banks. It’s one of those things people thought they might never need and now all of a sudden they need it. So this ability by the GMC to raise funds makes it so MCFOODS and Feeding Middlesex County can get the supplies they need for people that become their clients.”
According to Feeding Middlesex County, 8.7 percent of county residents, or 1 in 8 residents, are food insecure, meaning more than 70,000 residents do not have “reliable access to enough healthy and culturally appropriate food” on a daily basis.
Twenty-eight percent of public school students in Middlesex County receive free or reduced lunches, meaning more than 44,000 children in the county do not have enough to eat when they are not in school, especially on weekends and during the summertime, according to data on Feeding Middlesex County’s website.
South Brunswick High School Athletics Director Elaine McGrath, past president of the conference and the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, said she and her peers “were talking as a group” during a recent Zoom video conference “that it would be a great idea for our student-athletes and coaches to give back to the community that’s been so generous to the GMC.”
“We’ve been involved with the freeholders for a number of years and they’ve been generous to us. Middlesex County is one of the top places (in New Jersey) where this disease has broken out. We know by helping MCFOODS, we are helping maybe some of our own families in need.”
New Jersey ranks second in the country with more than 113,000 residents testing positive for the coronavirus and second nationally with 6,442 COVID-19 related deaths.
Middlesex County has accounted for 11,062 of those positive cases and 402 of those deaths.
Noting the conference has thousands of student-athletes and coaches at the varsity and subvarsity levels, McGrath said she believes the online fundraiser is “a great opportunity for everybody to get together” to make a difference.
“Thank you to Freeholder Kenny and Ms. McGrath for taking the lead in this invaluable initiative,” said Senator Patrick J. Diegnan Jr., who is a member of The Marisa Tufaro Foundation’s board of trustees. “It is inconceivable going through this crisis and also not being able to feed your family. I can’t think of a more worthwhile initiative.”
According to the latest data on its web site, MCFOODS in 2018 distributed 953 tons of food, which represented food donations from food drives and permanent food donation sites as well as financial donations used to purchase additional food to the more than 120 pantries in its network.
Feeding Middlesex County raises funds to purchase food and equipment to assist qualifying agencies in procuring, storing, preserving and transporting food and other necessary items to food-insecure neighbors through the county food bank.
MCFOODS and Feeding Middlesex County work in concert to support emergency food providers in all 25 Middlesex County communities.
Agencies eligible for assistance must be 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations related to houses of worship, schools or local government. Feeding Middlesex County performs significant due diligence, ensuring support goes to appropriate organizations, which gives community partners confidence their support goes directly to the cause.
In a message on its donation landing page, GMC officials wrote that the league is proud “to lend our support during this time of need. We know Food Banks around Middlesex County are under a great amount of stress to assist their residents who may have fallen on hard times. We know that the many amazing coaches and student-athletes from around the Greater Middlesex Conference, who are used to competing against each other, will team up to combat the food shortages in our Food Banks.”
“Just think, if everybody donated one dollar,” McGrath said. “What would that look like? That could make a difference in a Middlesex County family’s life.”