418 Food Boxes Donated To Feed Point Pleasant Families In Need

POINT PLEASANT, NJ — When they launched the 2023 Family Food Box drive, the organizers of Panthers, Let's Eat hoped to get 68 boxes to help families in need.

The Point Pleasant community, however, responded in a big way, donating 418 boxes of food — boxes that will help ensure families and children don't go without food over spring break and in weeks to come.

"Our community is AMAZING," the organization said in a Facebook post announcing the results of the food drive, calling the response "Insane."

Panthers, Let's Eat launched in the summer of 2018 to help makes sure students who participate in the free and reduced lunch program had food to get through the summer, when school is closed. For many students who take part in the national school lunch program, those can be the only meals those children have — meaning they may go without food when school is closed.

The group provides them with weekly grocery deliveries of healthy, kid-friendly food for all children in the household during summer vacation, and winter and spring break, the school district noted in 2022, when 200 boxes were collected.

"Through Panthers, Let’s Eat, participating families are also connected to holiday meals and toys, new winter coats, backpacks and other supplies," the school district said.

The program also provides emergency assistance to families who reach out in tough times.

The group of volunteers works with the parent-teacher organization at Ocean Road School, but points out that it is not part of the school district.

"Our aim is to make sure that no child in all four Point Pleasant Boro Schools goes hungry," the group says on its website.

The group works with the district to provide assistance while maintaining the privacy of the families who receive help through the free and reduced lunch program.

"The district mails out the letters to families on the free/reduced lunch program for us. We do not know who they are," the group says. "If a family chooses to be helped by our program they must volunteer some of their info to Panthers, Let's Eat so we can provide assistance. This is a voluntary program and in no way does any familiy on the free and reduced lunch program have to join or give their information."

The annual food box drive provided a list of items to be collected, from fruit and applesauce to easy-to-cook items like pasta and sauce, macaroni and cheese and rice and beans. It also includes kid-friendly items such as peanut butter and jelly and fruit snacks, along with cookies or other treats "because they are kids."

The 2023 drive, which started in early February, drew community-wide support, and the group thanked everyone who participated, singling out the following:

"A HUGE thank you to:

• Nellie Bennett's Kindness week project for collecting toiletries for every family!
• Ocean Road's Project of Love for collecting over 40 completed boxes/bags and leaving such beautiful uplifting messages in their boxes!
• The middle school and high school volunteers who worked loading and unloading in the cold, pouring rain this morning.
• Our amazing teachers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, alumni who drove around delivering with cars bursting at the seams.
• Mr. Karaba for letting us use the perfect space at Nellie Bennett so (we) weren't out in the rain!
• The amazing PLE team but especially Katherine Martorana, Kim Boyle, Jennifer Murphy, Karla Nedza, Dana Quinn, Kirsten Lake-Victor.

"And finally YOU the community members, students, teams, preschools, dance classes, clubs," the group said. "Thank you for your hard work collecting, putting love into your boxes and dropping off. Our families were SO well taken care of today. They got the financial boost that they really need, but even more importantly felt so loved. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!"