Hospital Personnel From Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch and Community Medical Center in Toms River Help Unload 1500 Turkeys Donated By Stop & Shop as The FoodBank of Ocean and Monmouth Counties Responds to Unprecedented Requests for Emergency

Peter Spanos, the Marketing Director of Barnabas Health Medical Group (right) led Hospital personnel from Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch and Community Medical Center in Toms River, that helped unload 1500 turkeys donated by Stop & Shop to the FoodBank of Ocean and Monmouth Counties, as the Food bank responds to unprecedented requests for emergency assistance.

Stop & Shop’s Turkey Express program will deliver nearly 21,000 turkeys to hunger relief organizations in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island this holiday season.

· The hospital personnel, say they hope their efforts will lead others to help the FoodBank meet the needs of the hungry in this difficult economic period. In the past year the FoodBank says it has seen a 16 percent increase in food distribution – from 7.3 million pounds of food to 8.5 million pounds of food.

· Over 131,000 people in Monmouth and Ocean Counties live on incomes that put them at risk of hunger at some time each month.

· 40% of them are children and elderly.

· To afford the monthly rent of an average two-bedroom apartment in Ocean and Monmouth Counties, a minimum wage worker would have to work THREE fulltime jobs.

· A family of four needs an annual income of between $62,000 and $69,000 to be self-sufficient in Monmouth or Ocean Counties, but 20% of Monmouth County and 28% of Ocean County households earn less than $35,000 annually.

Stop & Shop donates over $12 million in product and financial support to individual food banks. In addition to the Turkey Express program, Stop & Shop continues to fight hunger through the Food for Friends campaign, which will raise more than $1 million this year for more than 300 local hunger relief organizations through the six states that it operates in.