Frank’s Deli helps fill a ‘need to feed’
Community partnership with Interfaith provides food to those in need
Four years ago, Frank’s Deli & Restaurant at 1406 Main Street began to donated unsold bread, pastries and rolls to Interfaith Neighbor’s Need to Feed program — that practice continues today.
Need to Feed provides soup and pastries in the winter and sandwiches in the summer to residents in need.
Franks is a longtime Asbury Park breakfast and lunch venue people have loved for more than a half-century. Heather Schulze, Interfaith Neighbors’ community outreach coordinator, wants people to know there’s another reason to love Frank’s.
Twice a week, Schulze picks up the unused pastries, bread and rolls to freeze and later use donate with with soup or as sandwiches to underprivileged community members with outside Kula at 3 p.m. each Monday.
“I see Frank’s as a place in town where everyone goes,” Schulze said before an early June Need to Feed venue. “And everyone who goes there is treated the same and gets great food. It’s nice to have someone who treats everyone equally supporting us.”
Joe Maggio whose mother, Maria, and father, Frank, first opened the restaurant in 1960 next door to its current site, now runs Frank’s with his son, TJ Maggio; his sister, Maura Marrucca; and his aunt, Barbara Maggio.
“We’re happy to be a part,” Joe Maggio said. “It’s a good idea.”
Since its beginning in December 2010, the program has continued to grow and now serves meals to approximately 200 persons each day it operates. During the winter months, soup, hot coffee, bread and pastries are made available to the public free of charge. During the summer months, the menu changes to sandwiches and juice. Whenever possible and available through donation or purchase, Need to Feed also distributes mittens, gloves, scarves, hats, fruit, toys, books, shelf stable foods, holiday items and other goods to the community.
Need to Feed began when a group of New Jersey Youth Corps of Monmouth County students envisioned a program that would bring a free meal directly to the residents of the West Side community in need. With a goal of providing food to homeless persons, families, children, and others in need, an initial operating grant was obtained through the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation. Multiple public and private donors have allowed the program to continue operating.
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