A massive food drive for a big problem: Action Against Hunger combats food insecurity

There’s a reason why November and December are known as the “giving season.”

The winter holidays tend to inspire a bit more generosity in people, said Michele Leskowitz, regional site manager for the Center for Food Action, or CFA. Cardboard boxes sit in hallways at offices — receptacles for cans of corn and green beans employees have dug up from the back of their pantries. Loose change gets plunked into red buckets outside of grocery stores.

All of this is great, but for Leskowitz and her colleagues at the CFA, providing food for North Jersey's hungry is not a seasonal occupation. It's a year-round gig.

“People tend to give around the winter holidays,” Leskowitz said. “But during the summer the kids are out of school, so they can’t get free meals there. This can be a huge problem.”

That's why the Action Against Hunger Food Drive — which was held from noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday — is so important.

“This food drive comes right at the end of our slow season and fills up our warehouses,” Leskowitz said. The CFA (Bergen County), as well as MEND (Essex County) and the Interfaith Food Pantry and Resource Center (Morris County), received portions of the donated food from the drive, which they will distribute to the community.

Action Against Hunger is a program run by the Foundation of Northern NJ Inc., which was formerly known as the North Jersey Media Group Foundation. According to the foundation, Action Against Hunger is the largest one-day food drive in the metropolitan area. It’s been an annual event since 1991.

On Sunday, food drive booths were set up at more than 50 locations across North Jersey, including ShopRites, Kings, Acmes and Stop & Shops. At the ShopRite in Rochelle Park, four Ramapo College students stood outside on the chilly, overcast day, accepting cash donations and non-perishables from shoppers.

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Bonnie Bower of Ringwood, Erika Signorile of Sayreville, Amanda Filippone of Freehold and Carine Fiumara of Freehold were representing their sorority, Sigma Delta Tau, by volunteering their time. Other members of the sorority were stationed at other grocery stores in the area. The event was set up by their community service chairperson, Bower said.

Bower, Signorile and Filippone staffed the donation booth near the exit, while Fiumara handed small sheets of paper to incoming shoppers listing recommended items to donate, such as baby food, evaporated milk and canned meat.

According to Irwin Vogelman, director of operations at the CFA, who has worked the food drive for 19 years, setting up donation sites directly at grocery stores is the strategy that makes the greatest impact.

“When it’s right outside the store, people buy the product right then,” Vogelman said. “It’s fresh — not out of their pantries, which is old. We have the ability to direct them as to what we need.”

Last year’s drive amounted to more than 24 tons of food, about $76,000 worth of groceries, according to the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. This year, Action Against Hunger aims to address hunger in 200,000 homes. Food insecurity affects one in every 10 residents in New Jersey, notes the Foundation of Northern NJ Inc.

“There are so many people struggling in northern New Jersey. A lot of people think there aren’t,” Leskowitz explained.

Though the grocery store food drive is over, there are still ways to donate. Food can be dropped off at the CFA, MEND and Interfaith Food Pantry and Resource Center offices, or money can be donated online to help the organization purchase cheaper, wholesale food.

For more information, visit actionagainsthunger.com.