Stop & Shop Donates 2,500 Thanksgiving Turkeys to NJ Food Banks

Triada Stampas, the President and CEO of Fulfill, the Foodbank that serves Monmouth and Ocean Counties and Elizabeth McCarthy, the President and CEO of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, the state’s largest foodbank took part in a Stop & Shop Turkey Express Shoot-Out during the second intermission of the Devils . Rangers game at the Prudential Center to underscore the growing issue of hunger and food insecurity in New Jersey.

Stop & Shop donated 1,500 Thanksgiving Turkeys to the Community FoodBank of New Jersey and 1,000 Thanksgiving Turkeys to Fulfill. The two foodbank leaders joined Stop & Shop’s Regional Vice President of Operations, Mandy Koski in a center ice shoot out to promote the efforts of the two New Jersey Food Banks to battle hunger and food insecurity across the state.

The donation of turkeys in New Jersey is part of Stop & Shop’s annual Turkey Express program which will provide more than 21,000 turkeys to hunger relief organizations across New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

Stop & Shop’s donation will spotlight the increased need the Food Banks are facing going into the holiday season:

Fulfill

• Visits to Fulfill partner pantries is up 65% compared to last year
• Fulfill is distributing enough food for 1.1 million meals each month
• In the last year, Fulfill distributed enough food for over 14 million meals

Community FoodBank of New Jersey

• Last fiscal year, The Community FoodBank of New Jersey distributed more than 108 million pounds of nutritious food, equating to more than 90 million meals.
• More than 725,000 people in New Jersey are food insecure (7.8% = about 1 in 13).
• More than 175,000 kids in New Jersey are food insecure (8.7% = about 1 in 11).