Open Door Continues Tradition of Helping During the Holidays

Jean Yaecker, the Director of Operations for the Freehold Area Open Door describes this time of year as “crazy, insane and wonderful.”

On Monday morning Yaecker welcomed the first of what she expected to be close to 450 families to come through the doors on Throckmorton street to pick up a dinner for Thanksgiving. The meals included all the trimmings from bread and vegetables to pies and a full turkey.

Open Door has been helping residents with their holiday meals for close to 20 years now and said a lot of that success has to do with their 150 volunteers. She said they will start training a new group of volunteers after Christmas but for right now there is a solid group ready to help those in need. “We’re inundated with volunteers which is wonderful,” she said. “It’s the only way things work.”

The Freehold facility got a few extra volunteers on Monday as Schools Development Authority CEO Marc Larkins brought his family to help give meals to local residents. Last year Larkins represented the Chris Christie administration handing out meals at the Lowe’s in Howell and said he was glad to do his part. “We’re here to do whatever we can to assist those in need this time of year,” he said. “Last year we were focused on Sandy. We’re going to continue the effort and even above and beyond Sandy there’s a lot of families still in need so we want to come out and try to help them the best we can.”