Where the Shore's Food Security Work Actually Happens

Where the Shore's Food Security Work Actually Happens

Most shore families will never meet the system directly — and that is by design. The quiet machinery that keeps a working family from running short in November is a two-tier structure: a county-wide distribution hub in Neptune, and a web of community-run drop sites and drives that bring the food into Rumson, Fair Haven, and the towns in between.

• FulFill NJ — FoodBank of Monmouth & Ocean Counties is the distribution hub. Its center sits at 3300 Route 66 in Neptune (732-918-2600), with a second site, The B.E.A.T. Center, at 1769 Hooper Avenue in Toms River.
• FulFill's network of local food pantries and soup kitchens served roughly 103,000 monthly visitors in 2024 — nearly double the ~54,000 they handled in 2022.
• Its rule of thumb for donors: every $1 provides about 3 meals to a neighbor in the county.

The 100 Yards of Food

This fall, a local nonprofit did something very Monmouth: it put the work on a football field. On Sunday, hundreds of students from across the county filled the Howell High School field with yellow bags of food for Dermer Dreams' second annual 100 Yard Food Drive Challenge, a state-wide collection aimed at 100,000 pounds.

• Dermer Dreams — co-founded by Daniel Dermer — operates drop sites at Rumson and Fair Haven, plus locations in Montclair and Egg Harbor, and routes the food to kitchens, shelters and food banks across the state for the winter.
• The food collected flows into the same county network described above; the drive is the community's front door to that system.
• For a family that has never given before, a single morning of bagging and carrying is the entire commitment — no membership, no follow-up.

Why the Numbers Moved

FulFill's data shows a steady climb in the people its network serves — up about 25% in the residents estimated to be food insecure between 2019 and 2022, from roughly 97,500 to 121,500 across the two counties, and its pantry network's monthly visitors nearly doubled in two years. One of the findings donors often find surprising: a large share of the families served make too much to qualify for government assistance, yet still stretch their budget hard — the family that has kept gas in the car and the lights on, and where food is where sacrifices start. That middle band of the county — solid jobs, high rents, real strain — is exactly where neighbor-to-neighbor giving does its quiet work, and it explains why the demand for steady, reliable giving keeps outpacing what seasonal campaigns raise.

Why it matters locally

Because this work is local in the most literal sense: the food a shore family donates in October can be on a Rumson kitchen table in December, moved through a county system run by people most of us pass on Route 66 without thinking about. The institutions doing this work do not need new buildings or national campaigns. They need steady volume — recurring donors, volunteers on a schedule, and families who would like their giving to land close to home. For Monmouth, that fit is a long-established reflex: the county has historically ranked among the most generous in New Jersey, and this infrastructure is where that habit has a direct, visible return. A family that funds the hub or spends a Saturday on a drive is not making a symbolic gesture; it is adding measurable meals to a local system that runs on exactly that kind of dependable participation. That is a fit the shore has always been good at.

How to Get Involved

• Fund the network. Donate to FulFill NJ (FoodBank of Monmouth & Ocean Counties) — every $1 provides about 3 meals. fulfillnj.org · 732-918-2600 · 3300 Route 66, Neptune.
• Give through the drive. Drop food at the Rumson or Fair Haven sites, or support the Dermer Dreams 100 Yard Food Drive Challenge. news12's report on the drive.
• Serve meals directly. Lunch Break in Red Bank runs a community kitchen and pantry and grew volunteer hours nearly 19% in 2025. lunchbreak.org.
• Know the local need. The state's 2026 Monmouth County Food Security Chartbook is the best single source on the six dimensions of food security in the county.

How Love of Humanity Supports This Work

Love of Humanity is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that treats local food-security institutions as the backbone of community giving. Where the county food bank moves food and local drives gather it, we help shore families connect to the same work with structure — co-branded family education with local institutions, a Local Impact Fund that routes gifts to named, verifiable programs, and the reporting families expect from their own money. We work beside organizations like FulFill and Dermer Dreams, not in front of them: they build the network, and we help a legacy land in it.