Some 3,000 needy in N.J. will be warmer this winter

JAMESBURG - Dr. Debra DeMarco, of Monroe Chiropractic Care, and Gini Mundy, of The Well Being, expected to collect 2,000 coats with their fourth annual coat drive, nicknamed "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

They were happily proven wrong.

With help from local schools, businesses and residents, they collected some 3,165 coats between October and December for the needy.

"That's quite a bit more than last year's 1,165," DeMarco said.

This year's increase is partially due to the increased participation of local schools. The organizers created a program for seventh and eighth-graders at Immaculate Conception School in Spotswood. The students, who need to perform community service to prepare for receiving their Confirmation, took on the responsibility of sponsoring their own boxes for the drive. The school collected 1,000 coats, with one eighth-grader in particular responsible for 700 of them.

Also, Barclay Brook, Brookside, Mill Lake and Applegarth schools in Monroe collected approximately 800 coats.

Many businesses were involved in various

capacities, along with the Jamesburg Senior Center, Jamesburg Police Department and Jamesburg Borough Hall. The East Brunswick Woman's Club participated this year for the first time as well.

One of the businesses that helped out was Milano French Cleaners, South Brunswick, which not only cleaned coats for free, but donated any coats that had been unclaimed for over a year.

The coats were transported by 1-800- PackRat, which not only donated the use of storage containers for three months, but when it became logistically impossible to ship the overflow, transported the coats as well.

All coats collected were transported to the New Jersey Food Bank, Hillside, where volunteers sort them. The coats are distributed to those who need them by Jersey Cares, a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to the well-being of needy families throughout New Jersey.

"Every year, we are amazed and joyful at the generosity and inherent goodness in the world," Mundy and DeMarco said in an e-mail. "Sometimes, all you have to do is provide a way for it to show."