At Freeholder Meeting, Giving Thanks, Giving Food

CREST HAVEN — Freeholders introduced the $138.3-million 2013 county budget at the Jan. 22 meeting. The tax levy will increase taxes just over a cent, to about 20 cents per $100 of assessed value. The spending plan will have its public hearing Feb. 26 at 4:30 p.m. in the Freeholders Meeting Room of the County Administration Building.
Before that official act, the board had some photos taken with various constituents.
The first was a gift of 15 boxes of foodstuffs donated to the Cape Human Resources Whitesboro food pantry by the county employees program “Cape May County Helping Our Neighbors.” The employees and public joined to make the donation possible.
Accepting the donation was Executive Director Vera Smith, and board president Bill Harris.
Smith told the board the agency’s pantry assisted 940 families. The pantry has existed for 35 of the 39 years Smith has been with Cape Human Resources.
“We serve Cape May County period,” Smith said. The pantry was “one of the first in Cape May County…We don’t refuse anyone,” she added. Many of those assisted are from Social Services, she said.
The pantry is open five days a week, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Smith said.
“Volunteers in Cape May County never cease to amaze me,” said Harris, who also lauded Clerk of the Board Elizabeth Bozzelli, who for many years headed the Office of Aging.
Patrick Kennedy, president of Rotaract Club, carried a huge thank-you card signed by many students at Atlantic Cape Community College. It was part of a project aimed to thank the workers at the county’s Office of Emergency Management for the work done through Hurricane Sandy.
Dr. Patricia Gentile, dean of the Cape May County Campus, told the board that the storm impacted 428 of the college’s students. Of that number, she said, 67 percent were from towns ranging from Brigantine to Cape May. They sought aid from the college’s foundation, she said.
Through the efforts of the Rotaract Club, which is affiliated with Rotary International. Aid arrived from Wayne Community College in South Carolina while more poured in from a Portland, Ore. community college.
At the end of the semester, $45,250 in financial support had emerged to aid students. “It helped them before the end of the semester,” Gentile said of the affected students.
“If it wasn’t for pitching together, it would not have happened,” she added.
Assistant Professor Michael Bolicki, club advisor, told the board to raise money club members held a candy cane drive, during which many students signed the thank you card.
The club’s “purpose is to stimulate leadership development, organize and conduct service projects at the local, national and international levels and follow high professional standards,” states the college’s website.
Kennedy presented the card to Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton, who relayed it to Martin Pagliughi, county emergency manager. Thornton requested that the card be placed in a prominent location in the OEM headquarters in the basement of the County Library on Mechanic Street, Court House.
The last photo taken at the meeting was of the county’s Medical Reserve Corps.
Thornton lauded the volunteers who served throughout the hurricane in shelters, assisting the ill and injured. He said the group “just progressed by leaps and bounds. When we have a crisis or catastrophe, like Hurricane Irene of Superstorm Sandy, those citizens who have not been impacted in a shelter do not realize how difficult those conditions are.”
He recalled visiting the Woodbine shelter where the corps members “did a magnificent job caring for those people who were very ill.” Nine of those were so ill, they had to be moved into a long-term care facility
Volunteers received plaques for their efforts, and had a photo taken with freeholders.