The Free Meal Center
PO Box 863
1206 Route 9 South
Cape May Court House, NJ 08210
info@freemealcenter.com
The Free Meal Center of Cape May County, New Jersey
For the latest updated news about TFMC, go to the "What's New" page.
We Need:
Folks to build us picnic tables! Call Douglas at 609-780-7129.
Mission Statement
The Free Meal Center is a secular, non-profit, charitable organization, operated by five Board of Director members and a network of compassionate volunteers, and funded by donations and grants.
Our mission is to provide nutritious, free, on-site meals in Cape May County, New Jersey to anyone who walks through our doors in a manner that preserves and enhances the dignity of each individual. Volunteers and organizations may offer information and advice concerning finances, housing, health and nutrition, and job and career needs to willful participants.
About Us
The Free Meal Center (TFMC) is a group of local business people and caring citizens filling a void in the county by offering free, nutritious meals without conditions. We have a purchase agreement on a former restaurant at 1206 Route 9 South in Burleigh, Middle Township. The 4,275 square-foot facility, situated on 2.36 acres, has four dining rooms, four restrooms, a large kitchen area, and parking for about 40 cars. It’s centrally located in the county and easy to find.
TFMC took possession of the building March 15, 2010 and hopes to be open to the public in August. The building needs roof repairs, the interior painted, kitchen equipment and a hood-vent system, tables and chairs, gravel on the parking lot, and whatever else we discover needs repair or replacement.
TFMC is established as a secular, non-profit, charitable organization that is incorporated in the State of New Jersey. It's the first-ever, daily soup kitchen in Cape May County. We’ll initially offer lunch Monday through Saturday, with breakfast also on Saturdays. Our on-site volunteers will treat our “guests” with respect and dignity. Our meals are open to everyone and we won’t even ask their names. We hope our donors and the curious public will stop by to have a meal and view our operation first-hand.
Beside the volunteer Board of Directors, TFMC will have three divisions of volunteers: 1.) at the site to help in the kitchen, serve food, and clean up; 2.) to make daily phone calls to restaurants and grocery stores and food pantries to get food donations and then have them picked up by a driver volunteer; and 3.) to solicit monetary donations through enjoyable fundraisers. Each of the three divisions (Site, Food, Donations) will have a Volunteer Leader, who will in turn work under a Board of Director member.
The only paid positions at TFMC will be two cooks, who will each prepare the meals three days per week. The cooks will give the kitchen the continuity it needs to be efficient and successful. Volunteers and those performing “community service” can assist the cooks. We’re expecting about 200 folks per meal, which should eventually top out at 250 or so. We’ll serve the meals buffet style and guests can come back for seconds and thirds as long as the food lasts. Lunch hours are 11:30am to 1:00pm and the Saturday breakfast is 7:30 to 9:00am. We expect to have extended hours on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day, and Easter.
TFMC is attempting to fill a missing link in the county. Cape May County has 42,000 yearround families, of which 4,000 households live under the poverty line ($22,050 for 4) and another 9,500 households have social security as their sole source of income. The county unemployment rate is currently hovering around 13% and when added to those who have basically given up ever finding gainful employment, the jobless rate approaches 30%.
We will be serving appetizing and nutritious meals on-site. We will always serve a hot soup and salad at lunch, plus a main entrée, vegetable, and fruit. Beverages will be milk and juices. We will avoid unhealthy ingredients like sugar and salt when cooking and we won’t have deep-fried foods. Staying on track with health, the entire 2.36 acre property will be designated tobacco-free, just like most school grounds.
You Can Help!
While the recession years of 2008 and 2009 have affected all of us, those on the lower end of the economic ladder are especially hard hit. This is our chance to make a big difference in their lives. Your donations not only help us feed them, but it helps restore their faith in humankind.
Please listen to your heart and make a generous tax deductible donation to The Free Meal Center.
We also need volunteers for all three of our Volunteer Divisions. If you have some free time that you would like to put toward helping us out, let us know. We will also be doing fundraisers at our site in Burleigh, such as car washes, bake sales, yard sales and such, so we’d love to have youth, civic, and senior groups, plus individuals, jump on board and help with an event. To find out more about volunteering, call Jewell Real Estate Agency at 609-729-8505 or Douglas Jewell at 609-780-7129
Thank you from TFMC Board of Directors – Douglas Jewell, Nicholas Nastasi, Burgess "Butch" Hamer, Joyce Jewell and Kathleen Matthews – and the many compassionate volunteers who make a difference.
Help Us get on Facebook/Twitter
We need you to spread the word about TFMC on Facebook and other social networks. Reach out to your friends and the world.
Materials & Tradesmen Needed
Many of the materials we need to get the building prepared to open are being donated by The Home Depot of Cape May Court House. Thank you.
We also need: Kitchen equipment: bain marie, food warmer, pressure steamer, ice machine, triple pot sink, handwash sink, mop sink, commercial dishwasher, grease trap, 4-bay serving warmer, upright freezers, upright refrigerators, compressor for walk-in refrig.
Tradesmen Needed: If you can give us a half day or a few hours, it'll get us farther along!
CMC Herald "Compass Points" Column
Will Meal Center Fly Where Hunger, Poverty Abound?
“Will it fly?”
Do you suppose the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, asked that of each other as they viewed a contraption that was anything but aerodynamic? On the contrary, did they possess such faith in their “flying machine” that they dared not allow a question to cross their minds?
According to a Web site about the brothers — www.wright-house.com/wright-brothers — “In 1878, when Orville and Wilbur were ages 7 and 11, their father brought them a toy ‘helicopter.’ It was based on an invention by French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Penaud. Made of cork, bamboo, and paper, with a rubber band to twirl its twin blades, it was a little bigger than an adult's hand.
They later said this sparked their interest in flight. During the next few years, Wilbur and Orville tried to build these themselves, but the bigger they made them the less well they flew. Somewhat discouraged, the brothers turned to kites.”
In 1892, the Wrights opened a bicycle shop. But their love of flying wasn’t really there. About that time, French aviation researcher Octave Chanute collected data and brought together young aviators to experiment with gliders on the sand dunes at the Lake Michigan shore. The Wright brothers interest in flight was renewed.
Then, in 1903, at Kitty Hawk, N.C. the first airplane flight took place. The rest is history.
What does a bit of aeronautical history have to do with Cape May County? A lot, especially when it comes to The Free Meal Center. That new endeavor intends to provide free lunches to anyone who walks through its doors, Monday through Saturday, in May at the former Country House Restaurant on Route 9 in Burleigh.
Deserted for the last few years, the center, detailed elsewhere in a story in today’s edition, could be the start of something needed by a growing population in Cape May County: Those who cannot afford to eat.
The concept of feeding the hungry is not new, here or elsewhere, but Douglas Jewell and his wife, Joyce, Realtors who have seen the insides of some poverty-stricken homes and the families who reside in them, decided it was time to do what they could in this corner of the world.
Soon, they enlisted Nicholas Nastasi, Burgess Hamer, and Kathleen Matthews to join the board.
Like the Wright brothers, The Free Meal Center isn’t much to behold now, but it has loads of potential. It boasts four dining rooms and as many bathrooms. There is a kitchen in need of much commercial equipment with a leaky roof over it, but there is a burning desire to make repairs and get this to work for local hungry folks aided by volunteers and donations of food and money.
The board is securing federal tax-free status to enable receipts for food to be issued as tax deductions for donors.
Why a place for free lunches, and breakfasts on Saturday mornings year round? Because there is a need, said Jewell. After visiting with Sister Jane’s meal center in Atlantic City, they learned that of her 800 daily lunches, about 5 percent are eaten by Cape May County residents.
Jewell researched population figures. He found, according to the Census Bureau, of 42,000 county households, some 4,000 with four persons, exist under the poverty level of $22,050 annually. There are an additional 9,600 households here existing only on Social Security income.
A good meal is just a wish for many fellow residents.
If that is not sufficient to chill one’s spirit, I don’t know what it would take to prove the real need of what this group is doing.
The secular center intends to feed anyone regardless of income, no questions asked. If anyone walks through the door, they can dine, buffet style, and walk out.
There will be no need to profess any religious creed or listen to a sermon. Grace, of course, will be optional for those who may want to thank the Lord for the provisions before them, but again, that will be totally left up to the diner.
The 2.2-acre site will be entirely tobacco free. There will be picnic tables outside for those who may want to enjoy the natural surroundings.
To make it “fly,” the group will need volunteers of all types. They want to ensure that everyone who enters the center will feel welcome. Surely, there are many people who would lend a hand to help those in need.
Thus, the potential question the Wright brothers may have asked, I pose again, “Will it fly?”
The need is evident. The core group is in place to make it happen.
This Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. the doors will be open for the public for inspection visits to view the center as it is.
They can offer help in many ways, and it is certain, because Cape May County residents are generous folks, they will likely step up to help those who are less fortunate.
Such a venture opens the door to many, young and old, including students of culinary arts at the county Technical High School who study to culinary skills. What better way to put their learning into motion and fulfill community involvement?
There will be two paid cooks to prepare meals, according to Jewell. That’s so there will be continuity in the kitchen, and the food won’t vary. The food will be good, wholesome and plentiful, and centrally located, according to Jewell.
Will it fly? Only readers will help answer that question.
This is one venture that seems to be a winner. Those who are hungry should not be in a county of oceanfront villas and marinas filled with yachts. There should not be, but there are. Now, it’s time to do something about this awful dilemma.
More Media Appearances
February 21 - Channel 40 News feature on Sunday night after Olympic coverage.
February 23 - 98.7 The Coast radio news clip all day long.
February 24 - Front page article by Editor Al Campbell in Cape May County Herald, plus Editor's column "Compass Points" (see article above).
February 26 - Talked on Don Williams Show on WOND radio and simulcast on Channel 40.
March 3 - Front page article by Editor Nancy Rump in Cape May County Gazette
March 4 - New Jersey Monthly internet article by Jen Miller
March 5 - Atlantic City Press article by Debra Rech in all three "Region" sections
March 7 - Philadelphia Inquirer article by Jacqueline Urgo in Sunday "South Jersey" section
March 8 - Appeared on 10-minute segment of "The Morning Wake-Up with Mark and Bob" on 98.7 The Coast radio
March 8 - Feature story by Phaedra Laird on NBC 40 nightly news at 5:00, 5:30, and 6:00
April 24 - Film footage and interviews conducted by Dan Carrigan at the Saturday workday appeared on the 11pm News on NBC 40
April 28 - Article and pictures by Editor Al Campbell in Cape May County Herald newspaper about the April 24 workday
April 29 - Article and pictures by Managing Editor Christopher South in Cape May Star & Wave newspaper about April 24 workday
May 12 - Article by Kristi Funderburk in Vineland Daily Journal newspaper about Buena 8th grader Mick Knapp raising money to buy letters for the main sign along Route 9
May 13 - Front Page article by Mary Linehan in Middle Township Gazette newspaper about the May 15th workday and TFMC progress
June 8 - P.E.A.S. Magazine article
June 23 - Picture in Cape May County Herald of The Home Depot manager Matt Peterson presenting check representing $10,000 in donations of materials to TFMC's Joyce & Douglas Jewell
August 7 - Article in Press of Atlantic City newspaper by Ben Leach about that day's Outdoor Work Day, plus updated information about TFMC.
August 11 - Five color-picture spread by Middle Township Gazette photographer Jen Arthur of August 7th Outdoor Work Day.
August 18 - Picture in Bright Side newspaper of Greater Cape May Elks Lodge 2839 head Barbara Mahon presenting check for $500 to TFMC's Joyce & Douglas Jewell
September 1 - Picture in Cape May County Herald of Cape May Association of Realtors' Carol Anderson and Jeanette DiNardo presenting check for $4,700 for red quarry floor tile to TFMC's Joyce & Douglas Jewell
Upcoming Media Appearances
NJN TV - statewide news feature (local Comcast Channel 23)
