Dear Editor:
During the month of November, The American Legion Bayonne Post 19 held our 10th annual coat drive for our homeless Veterans and our school children, and this year we asked for dried food and canned goods for our “Food for Warriors” program at joint base McGuire here in New Jersey. This year’s coat and food drive was chaired by Tara Servodio and Stan Komorowski, their dedication to our Veterans was the reason for our success. Our goal was to equal or do better than last year’s collection of 400 coats and we were able to surpass that with over 500 coats donated. Our members, the pool leagues and the community also donated over 1,400 pounds of food. We could not have done this without the continued support of our Bayonne citizens, Veterans, the pool leagues and local businesses especially the following local business Bayonne Community Bank, Senerchia’s Deli, Elbaums, Bayonne Public Library, Resnick’s Hardware, Hudson Lanes, Catchmaster, All Saints Academy, Robinson School and Stanlaw Fitness who put out collections boxes for coats and food.
Once again we teamed up to help homeless Veterans at Community Hope located on the campus of Lyon’s VA facility where we dropped off approximately 350 coats. Community Hope is a program called “Hope for Veterans” which opened in 2004 and is the largest and most comprehensive program for homeless Veterans in New Jersey. Community Hope is a 95 bed transitional housing program where they work cooperatively with Veterans Haven North and South. “Hope for Veterans” is giving our homeless Veterans a second chance at life.
Bayonne Post 19 also teamed up with the Bayonne school system to assist our young children. We want to thank Mr. Dan Ward who is with the Bayonne Board of Education for assisting us to help our school children stay warm this winter with children’s coats that were donated and distributed throughout the school system. And over 80 coats were once again donated to the BEOF to help needy families stay warm this winter.
Again on behalf of the American Legion Bayonne Post 19 family I want to thank Tara and Stan for a great job and we also want to thank the citizens of Bayonne for making this year’s coat and food drive an outstanding success.
For God and Country,
Mike Wilson
Commander
American Legion
Bayonne Post 19
