Project to help the homeless

I a week and a half, Sunday Dec. 20, we have the longest night of the year. Lately it's become known as a night of rememberance of the homeless. With that night and the holidays in mind, why not put together a couple of "care" packages for the homeless. It doesn't have to be a large box. Maybe something like the size of a shoe box. And what to stuff it with? How about items like a toothbrush? Or a small tube of toothpaste, or a comb, soap, small tube of shampoo, or a few disposable razors, shaving cream. For women some feminine hygiene products? Why not add a $5 McDonald's gift card, or a couple of gift cards for cups of hot drinks at a local convenience shop? A pair or two of socks! Or mittens. Other ideas for gifts? Are there homeless kids in your neighborhood? Don't know where the homeless are? Drop the packages at a police station, they'll know who to deliver it to.
Continued blessings on you and your. And thank you, from the homeless.

Steve Brigham says he's in contact with 25 homeless people, 5 of them women.

Want to help out? Send me an email and let me know how many packages you'd like to make up and whether it will be for a male or female.
(Larrym52@aol.com)

2015 KCOJ Community Dinner at OCL's the Lakewood branch

 

For five of the past six years the Kiwanis Club of Jackson has sponsored a community dinner at Ocean County Library's Lakewood branch. I wanted to share some of the reactions from Wednesday’s dinner.

"What a great success!  Nights like that remind us why we do this and why it is great to be part of the Kiwanis Club of Jackson. Our guest were wonderful and very thankful.   Special thanks to our two key clubs who came out in force and made the night special.  We look forward to working with our two great Key Clubs throughout the year.  Too many people to thank personally in this email, many who were there and some who worked behind the scene, but that is a good problem to have!   Maybe we can do a dinner in the spring as well?

Great job everyone" Fran
 

I wrote the following to Cathi Sheridan, Ocean County Library’s Lakewood branch manager: "I wanted to say thank you from the Kiwanis Club of Jackson for allowing us to hold our annual community dinner at the Lakewood branch last night.  10 of our member and 21 students from the youth programs we sponsor were able to feed 147 men, women and children (the youngest this year was four-years old) a warm meal. I don’t know who received more from the dinner, the people we served or us who are privileged to help out."

Larry

Cathi replied: "Thanks for continuing to have your Community Dinners in Lakewood.  Please forward my gratitude to the Kiwanis Club of Jackson as well.   Community members starting asking if you all were hosting the dinner again this year weeks ago.  They really look forward to it."

 

Thank you for all who helped out and donated items for the dinner: Fran  & Ed, Fran Diane, Lou & Claire, Bernadette, Ralph, Robin & Mateo, Dan, Colleen, Pam, Glenn, Matt, & Larry.  11 Key Clubber from Memorial and 9 from Liberty, and 1 member from the Goetz Builders Club were a great help!

And a big thanks to Jo & George. Their turkey soup will once again be the talk of the town this year. What a great soup! It was so popular.

And like ever year we seem to have just enough. It was a blessing for us to help out.

 

 

 

Holmanville Cemetery cleanup

Seven club members and three students helped us cleanup the Holmanville Cemetery on Veterans Highway Halloween morning. Grass mowing. Leaf raking. A total of about 30 service hours.

Nice weather. A good insight into Jackson history. And you have to enjoy working with friends to help out in the community.

Thanks to Fran, Carol, Pam, Glenn, Lou, our newest member Matt. And I was there, too. We also had both of Pam's children (Fred & Laurel) and their friend Nina.

 

Local shelter needs update: 11/1

• List of shelters in Ocean County and what they need ):


1) Pine Belt Arena (TR North) needs pet beds, dog and cat food (they're the only pet friendly one in our county), pee pads, water, non perishables, soap, toiletries (depends, diapers, shower supplies, and feminine products), toys and games, and sleeping bags.

2) Brackman Middle School (Barnegat) needs water, non perishables, kids games, soap, deodorant and sleeping bags.

3) TR East wasn't answering when she called so i don't know specifically what they need but i have friends who have dropped supplies off and they are desperate for anything they can get, pretty much the same as Toms River North

4) TR intermediate South needs water, non perishables, soap, kids games, pillows, blankets, pet supplies (mostly dogs there, they said only a few cats) and volunteers!

Breakfast with Santa

Great turnout at today's Breakfast with Santa.  A lot of nice members helped out, along with Key Club and Brookdale Circle K members.  Thanks for making this such a great success.

Thanks to event chairperson Carol; to Santa Floyd; to Donna; our cooks Fran, Bob, Paul, Dan, Laura, Glen, and Ralph; and our support staff Pat, MaryJo, Mrs. Johnson, Bernadette, Lois and Angie.  And I got to do the photos.  (If I missed anyone, let me know.)

And thanks to Jo and George from Jackson Helping Hands for joining with us.

Photos can be at http://www.flickr.com/photos/22036136@N07/sets/72157628376606867/ or the slideshow at http://www.flickr.com/photos/22036136@N07/sets/72157628376606867/show/ .

Community Dinner @ the Lakewood library branch

The Kiwanis Club of Jackson sponsored the fourth annual community dinner at the Lakewood branch of the Ocean County Library Thursday Nov 17.  Doors opened at 6 p.m.  When we finished we served about 110 people from the community.  We brought the extra food to Tent City and fed about 25 more people.

We had a lot of KCOJ members, their family members and friends help out by donating food, cooking the food and serving the food.  We also had help (and a donated turkey and two-gallons of soup) from Jo  & George of the Jackson Helping Hands club, members of our Key Club, and members of the library's Teen Advisory Board (TAB.)  Library staff also donated food.

The menu included several turkeys, 50 pounds of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, dessert and a sheet cake, mixed vegetables, corn, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs (12 dozen!), stuffing, soda, joice, coffee & tea.  And I know I've forgotten some items.

Thanks to all who helped us with the food and supported the community.

Thanks, too, to my photographers Dan, Pearl and Samantha.  A slideshow of their photos can be found on my Flickr account: http://bit.ly/uA86i7

Funnel cakes & wine? You bet!

So how did you spend last weekend?  A few of us sold about 500 funnel cakes as a fundraiser at the Laurita Winery's 2011 Harvest Festival.  Saturday was clear and cool, Sunday was on eof the best weather days one could ever hope for!

So who helped out?  Lou & Clair, Dan, Fran & Diane & Pearl & Sam, Laura, Donna and me.

Great jazz.  Great wine. Great funnel cakes.  And I'm so glad for Randy & Ray: great crowd!  And everyone had a great time.

A slideshow of photos taken by Pearl, Sam and I can be found on by Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22036136@N07/sets/72157627875696847/show/

A Busy Day of Service

We had a split squad out there today, attending at least two service projects.

We had representation at the Susan Komen walk at Great Adventure for breast cancer awareness.

And we had people cooking at Celtic Charms horse ride-a-thon in Howell.  Members Stan, Fran, Donna & Larry, along with Stan's friend Joe and six Key Club members served hot dogs and hamburgers to about 300 people.  The rain stayed away but we were under a heavy cloud all afternoon.

To view a slideshow of our team at work click on this link: http://bit.ly/qnRnpT 

Jazz fest at Laurita Winery

Laurita Winery invited us to participate in their new Jazz Fest by selling funnel cakes.  Great fundraiser for us.  We raised over $600 for Children's Specialized Hospital over the weekend.  Onlly thing is it was hot! hot!! hot!!!  But you know what?  We enjoyed each other's company despite the heat.  Thanks to Danny for helping me rediscover watermelon.  And for bringing in his shop fans.  They were a godsend.

A slideshow of photos from the weekend can be found here

And just like we usually have happen, we struggled with the fryer.  But we improvised.  Lessons learned.

National Night out Against Crime

We were cooking!  We were out there cooking hot dogs for the annual event.  We cooked up 600 in the first hour and ended up serving a total of about 900 throughout the night.

To view a slideshow of photos from the night click here  And just in case that doesn't work here is the Web address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22036136@N07/sets/72157627219500277/show/