West Orange's St. Cloud Neighborhood Holding Food Drive

The St. Cloud section of West Orange will be holding a food drive beginning next week benefiting the local food pantry.

Bright orange flyers will be taped to front doors and bags of food will be placed on the steps of homes in St. Cloud on Saturday morning, May 16, according to officials from the St. Cloud Cares Food Drive. The food will be delivered to the Holy Trinity-West Orange Pantry, 315 Main St., to help fill the shelves as the pantry heads into the lean summer months.

“A team from our church works at the Food Pantry, one evening and four mornings each month, to give out food to the clientele who come for food,” Karen Boettinger, a member of United Presbyterian Church of West Orange, said in a release from the food drive. “It’s really hard to see the shelves get empty sometimes, especially at the end of summer.”

The St. Cloud Cares Food Drive was modeled off of another successful West Orange food drive, the Gregory Cares Food Drive, which has been delivering food to the pantry in December for the past four years, the release said.

“We’re so glad we didn’t have to re-invent the wheel in order to put this together and Gregory Cares organizers helped us tremendously in laying down the groundwork,” Rev. Rebecca Migliore, pastor of United Presbyterian, said in the release.

Those who would like to donate food to the St. Cloud Cares Food Drive should tape the orange flyer to their front doors so they can easily been seen by volunteers. Bags will be collected and delivered to the collection site at United Presbyterian, 20 Old Indian Road, before being sorted and taken to the food pantry.

Residents can also sign up for the food drive online or residents can also drop off food at the collection site during the week prior from Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. or on May 16 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

For more information regarding the St. Cloud Cares Food Drive, email saintcloudcares@gmail.com, or call United Presbyterian at 973-731-1868.

(Photo courtesy of St. Cloud Cares Food Drive)