You Can NOT Be Replaced hurricane Sandy

Making breakfast for hurricane victims You Can NOT Be Replaced

Sandy Relief

From just days after Sandy, YCNBR® was volunteering with many other community groups and individuals to help recover our community. We spent 4 months running a distribution center with supplies and connecting familes with resources.

We were honored to help put on the Star Fish Project for families healing and Violets Meadow where we spruced over 40 gardens with volunteers from girl scouts, boy scouts, DOVES, First Baptist Church, Manasquan High School students and faculty, storm vicitms and Hope and Healing counselors. Thanks to Robin Hood we gave out 5 grills and 5 lawnmowers, lawn furniture and plants/mulch n stuff.

YCNBR recieved a total of $103,000.00. 100% of the money collected was dispensed by June of 2013 to just under 100 families. It was an honor to serve our community, we are now very happy to focus back to the youth of the area. for a break down of the numbers/towns click here

Thank you to all of you who have cared for and helped our community heal. There's still alot of work to do. A year later, many people in our community are still not home.

Proud recipients of 2 grants from the Robin Hood Foundation

Robin Hood was the most efficient, proactive and understanding group we delt with in the immediate wake of the storm. Someone contacted them about us, they reached out! We thought we were too new of an organization. Robin Hood carefully lisened and worked wtih us. We were able to hand out $75,000 to local families quickly and easily. They were a real joy to work with.

Thank you to Jetty life

for thier $5,000 donation. They too were quickly generous and did amazing work not only for our organization but thier own community. They are an awesome proactive altuistic company!

The donation they gave us allowed us to

afford the rent, insurance, utilities

for our distribution center unitl the end of February!

Click on the logo to visit their site

Thank you also to our Mayor and the Monmouth County Mental Health association for recognizing Chip, Christopher and Melissa Dayton among some pretty amazing people from our town who served the community after the storm. We are truly honored.

One of the great long term resources that we found for our community during our four months was Catholic Charities. We had an office in our distribution center and they sent case workers to us on Fridays to do intake.

When we closed our doors, Chip went to work with them in Red Bank. This video focuses on Ocean County which is one town south of us. The relief work a year later is still the same.

Please remember the families when you donate this year. Consider donating to the Churches in each area, they make sure 100% of the money gets to the families. email us if you want a local contact.

This is the video we show at our High School assemblies describing what it means to use your gifts and talents for others.

Jetty is an altruistic company filled with genuine people making a significant impact...because they can.

The guys are very humble and hard working. If you buy thier relief T the money goes straight to great work they are doing. Jetty Relief Project

Our community is on the Jersey Shore. Our town that lies on the ocean has two bodies of water on either side. The entire east side of our town was submerged and destroyed by hurricane Sandy. The storm hit at high tide, with a full moon right south of us. The count at three weeks of houses coming down was over 155 and climbing. The total number of damaged homes was 1850. We have FEMA, National Guard, OEM present. No power for over ten days. Some still without. Ofcourse we offered to help others in the community with a coat drive when asked. That effort exploded to an entire community effort that included churches, schools, local families and businesses.

We helped organize teams of work crews for families whose homes were damaged sending teams out on a constant rotation from 9:30-4 for the first 3 weeks, then weekends after. Then delivering packages to the houses of cleaning supplies, packaging supplies as they salvage belongings, food etc. We have teachers, students and families, even the homeless ones volunteering.

In the beginning the vounteers just from our location did 22 homes in one day. The churches were doing just as many. Some have boardwalk in their back yard from two towns over, there was a life guard boat 12 blocks in from 3 towns away. That work is constant. 18" of sand in the home is standard, 6' outside normal. 4' of water the norm but have had some with 6' water marks. Salt water got into the water lines, so many homes have sewage.

We also handing out donations all day 7 days a week til sometimes 7pm. We had to help people 'shop' because they were so lost. Or we collected the list of needed items and delivered to them. We found alone in their cold houses several elderly neighbors, some sitting in flooded houses with burners on. Which means sending volunteers/counselors to check on them and bring them hot meals to follow up.

We helped to feed the national guard, electric companies, contractors, people working. 5-8 Volunteers bring sandwiches by boxes of 100, they are gone everyday (thats just our location, the others are doing the same). We moved to a permanent location the day before Thanksgiving and stayed there serving the community daily until the end of February. Eventually we brough in Catholic Charities to help connect people with additional resouces we could not help them get.

We met 8:30 every morning with 4 churches, school crisis team and us. Our son Christopher was appointed by the mayor to be liaison between the national guard, FEMA, OEM, the town and the distribution centers.

What makes our community different is the amazing power of our spirit. Losing so many kids has made us very aware of the others around us. We care deeply. I dont think that there is another place that you could match the community involvement.

Recently Jetty Life who we had been working on our new line of shirts created a storm relief t-shirt. They sold an amazing amount of shirts. Why do I mention Jetty, well we have been so excited about our great new shirts because they are sweet...but also because Jettys motto is 'Draw your own line', they embody finding your passion and following your dreams. Even more important they have a long list of 'doing for others'. These guys are what we encourage all our young people to be.

When we told Jetty that we needed a new location for our distribution center and work crews but had to pay a rent. They stepped up. Our new location is courtesy of our friends at Jetty. We can continue to support our neighbors because of their generosity. Please check out their site and support this great company.

Update:

MANASQUAN UPDATE 19:00 HRS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012:Flooded Housing Units:1,850 homes flooded or damaged by wave attackHousing Units without power:1,100 homes in electrical grids that have not been restored (many more homes have had meters removed)Displaced Residents:100 displaced Manasquan families reported to the school district, 250-500 displaced families estimated Borough-wide

Update: 4-8-2013

Many of our neighbors are still not home. Our distribution center is now closed. It was a very long four months of daily interactions with people whose lives had been turned upside down. We now have many friends that were once strangers.