Community Volunteers Donate Meals to Challenged Mental Health Residents

Dring this Covid-19 pandemic it is a natural fear that there won’t be enough food to eat when visting one’s refrigerator or looking to buy supplies in the local food store.

Thanks to impressive food donations brought by local volunteers in our community, residents living in West Bergen Mental Healthcare’s 11 residences are being brought ready-to-eat meals to help them get through these trying times. “I just can’t praise these volunteers enough,” said Michael Tozzoli, West Bergen’s CEO. “We have over 100 residents with varying mental health challenges and right now our outstanding residential staff need all the help we can get to continue to effectively meet our consumers’ needs”.

As they learn about residents’ needs, volunteers are either contributing food and meals they made at home or ordering meals for residents from take-out restaurants.  Residential staff are always on-site to supervise food and meal distribution and presentation.

This effort is being organized and led by West Bergen’s Chief Development Officer Barbara Hand and Development Coordinator Chrissie Lijoi. “We are thrilled volunteers have stepped up to help and we are extremely thankful,” said Barbara Hand. “If there are more people who would like to help, we invite them to reach out to us”.

For more information about how you can help, please contact:

• Barbara Hand – 201.444.3550, ext. 7139 bhand@westbergen.org

• Chrissie Lijoi – 201.444.3550, ext. 7109 clijoi@westbergen.org