Editor's Notebook

It Shouldn't Be This Hard to Donate Food, With Response

At least in one neighborhood, the county's operation to collect donated food in orange bags alongside recyclables hardly ran like clockwork.

I have been donating food now for the past few years through the county's annual June pickups for its Curbing Hunger program, in which orange bags are supposedly put on your blue recycling container prior to June to fill with nonperishable foods. The idea is to make it easy by putting out the bags along with the two recycling collections scheduled for June throughout Somerset County. But, by now, I'm ready to give up. It's not that I don't want to continue giving, and consider the donation of sufficient food to be filling the most essential of needs for my fellow human beings. It's just that out of the last four times that I've placed the orange bags out with my recycling bucket, as directed, I can only be confident that once it ended up …

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With Food Bins Close to Empty, County's Curbing Hunger Program Looks For Donations

Officials celebrate the start of Curbing Hunger Month, as Assy. Denise Coyle of Bernards says food bins are the lowest she's seen.

With the bins only half full and 25 percent more families looking for help, Somerset County kicked off its annual Curbing Hunger program at the Food Bank Network of Somerset County on Tuesday. The program encourages residents to take part by putting out bags of food along with their recyclables during the month of June. “There has been a tremendous increase in families in need this year, and people who were using us temporarily are now coming on a regular basis,” said Marie Scannell, executive director of the Food Bank Network, located in Bridgewater. “We are overwhelmed sometimes, but to have enough food is what we are committed to.” The Curbing Hunger program began in 1995, and is held in June to bring in as much food as possible in the …

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