FCS Honors RCDS For Long History of Supporting Monmouth County Families

Family and Children’s Service (FCS) based in Monmouth County is honoring the (RCDS) this year for their dedicated commitment and service to the agency.

“We picked an organization that has a long history of supporting our mission,” said Vince D’elia, the CEO of FCS.

According to a case study done about the relationship between RCDS and FCS, there is lots of evidence of that history:

• The FCS Emergency Food Pantry has received countless donations of both food and funds from RCDS, helping provide for more than 114,000 families during the pantry’s 38 years in existence.  

• The FCS Thrift Shop has also been the residual beneficiary of RCDS’s Annual Rummage Sale through donations of clothing, furniture, household items and other essentials for our neighbors in need.

• For more than a dozen years, RCDS has collected an untold number of toys, games, clothing, winter coats and books for FCS’s annual Operation Sleighbells. In 2010 alone, students fulfilled the holiday wishes of over 450 children, nearly 20% of all the gifts donated to Operation Sleighbells last year. 

The agency plans to honor RCDS at their annual gala set for October 29 at the Deal Golf and Country Club, but they wanted to do something special for the students who support the agency as well. “We felt the gala is geared more to the parents and we wanted to put a face to the agency for the children to let them know what we do and how much we appreciate their support,” said D’elia.

On October 4, the organization joined the students of RCDS for their annual Community Service Day and held a special assembly for the grade 5-8 students. They gave a presentation about the programs their agency offers and played a round of FCS Jeopardy with the students.

“Every year we have Community Service day to recognize the service we do for the community and acknowledge our commitment as part of our educational mission,” said Jane Denny, director of community service at RCDS.

Denny said having FCS there for this special day made it even more real for the students, “Sometimes you can loose the focus of why you do what you do, and to put the meaning and faces back into the idea of why we do Operation Sleighbells or support homeless children is so important. Those are the images our children are not going to forget.”

For more information about Family and Childrens' Services or to learn how you can get involved, go to http://www.fcsmonmouth.org/

For more information about the 2011 Fall Gala or to purchase tickets, please contact FCS’s Director of Development Diane Gribbin at 732-222-9111 ext. 134 or at dgribbin@fcsmonmouth.org.

Check out the photo gallery to the right of this article to see the students having a blast during Jeopardy with FCS.