Ongoing Collection Drives
Community Food & Supply Drive
Monday, July 7 - Monday, July 21
During the pick up period for free Fair tickets members can use for our upcoming Member Appreciation Event, we will also be collecting donations for multiple food banks that serve as vital resources for our community.
The local food banks have requested the following items:
Sussex County Division of Social Services: Condensed chicken noodle soup, gallon Ziploc bags, 15 oz. Chef Boyardee with meatballs, canned vegetables, canned tuna, canned chicken, macaroni and cheese, chicken ramen, oatmeal packets, chewy granola bars, fruit snacks, pasta, and peanut butter.
Holy Counselor Lutheran Church: Canned stew, pasta sauce, canned corn, boxed potatoes, instant pudding, instant Jello, shampoo, deodorant, and 4-pack toilet paper.
Harvest House: Bottled water
Please stop by our office with donations to help make a difference in the lives of those who need it most!
Past Collection Drives
2024 Food Drive
November 1 - December 13, 2024
Towards the end of 2024, Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative invited its members and the wider community to donate canned and nonperishable food items, personal hygiene products, and pet food to support the Sussex County Division of Social Services in Newton and the Grateful Shed in Augusta. These institutions are a great resource for those in need, but they need the support of others in the community in order to effectively meet their mission, especially as demand rises around the winter holidays. With the help of our members, we successfully gathered a large collection of items to donate to these organizations.
12 Strays of Christmas 2024
We again worked with 102.3 WSUS, 103.7 NNJ, and 106.3 The Bear to help twelve adoptable stray animals find their furever homes this holiday season!
On Saturday, December 14th, we participated in 102.3 WSUS's Facebook Livestream for their 12 Strays of Christmas event, spotlighting animals at local shelters looking for their new families to give them the ultimate Christmas present: a new home. Leading up to this, we served as a donation site for pet food or supplies to support Father John's Animal House and One Step Closer Animal Rescue (O.S.C.A.R.) and their animal populations.
2024 Coat Drive
October 2024
Sussex REC once again called on the community to come together to donate new or gently used coats for a community-wide coat drive. This collection drive, organized in partnership with local high school student Fred Ogrinz, collected coats from across the community. All collected coats will be donated to the larger effort of the Jersey Cares Coat Drive Initiative, which has provided thousands of coats to people in need across New Jersey for nearly 30 years.
Fred arranged donation sits at Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative's office, High Point Regional High School, and every branch of the Sussex County Library system to make donating as convenient as possible for everyone in our community. New and gently used coats of all sizes, styles, and for all age groups and genders were accepted.
We are still reviewing the collected coats to get a final number, but we are blown away by the support of our co-op members and the wider community. Thank you all for making this drive a success, and for helping spread the warmth ahead of the winter weather!
Community Blood and Supply Drive
On Monday, July 8th, we hosted a blood and supply drive at our office. Employees, members, and the wider community were welcome to donate blood with Vitalant to help combat the ongoing blood shortage in the U.S.
In addition to this, we hosted NORWESCAP and Harvest House to share information on their community programs and accept donations from the public to support their local food banks. Thank you to all who participated!
12 Strays of Christmas
November and December 2023
In the leadup to the 2023 holidays, we served as a collection site for WSUS, WNNJ, and The Bear's pet supply drive - part of their 12 Strays of Christmas holiday event!
This donation drive collected pet food and supplies from the community to support local animal shelters and food banks like Father John's Animal House, OSCAR, and the Sussex County Division of Social Services. These organizations have a critical need for supplies to care for their populations of stray animals during the holidays and support struggling families who may otherwise need to surrender their pets.
SREC members and pet lovers from the community dropped off donations of pet food and supplies at our office throughout the duration of the drive, which lasted from Monday, November 20th to Friday December 15th. On December 16th, the radio stations broadcasted their 12 Strays of Christmas special, spotlighting adoptable animals in our area looking for their Furever Homes!
Jersey Cares Coat Drive
October 2023
Through the month of October in 2023, Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative invited members to donate new or gently-used coats at its office. Each coat collected was donated to the Jersey Cares Coat Drive Initiative, a non-profit organization that, for nearly 30 years, has provided coats to thousands of people in need across New Jersey. In 2022, Jersey Cares collected over 20,000 coats to distribute to people in need. Coats of all sizes are accepted, to fit any sex or age group. To learn more about the Jersey Cares Coat Drive, visit their website at www.jerseycares.org/The_Jersey_Cares_Coat_Drive.
Our collection drive was open from Monday, October 2nd through Tuesday, October 31st. Thanks to the incredible generosity of our members and employees, we were able to collect over 50 coats for the Jersey Cares Coat Drive. All are in good condition and many are brand new, and they'll all be used to keep someone warm this winter.
Used Book Collection to Benefit Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice
July 2023
Through July 2023, SREC worked with its members to collect used books to benefit Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice. This non-profit healthcare organization receives a monetary donation for all books received through its donation dropbox.
Together, SREC members and employees contributed 1,462 used books that will be donated to Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice to support its mission!
Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice has a book drop, so if you would like to support this nonprofit even outside of our collection period, please contact them regarding donating your books. You can also purchase used books to support Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice from https://newlegacybooks.com/donate-books. When checking out, you can choose an organization that you would like to help. If you choose one of Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice's locations, they will receive the proceeds from the sale.
2022 Less Talk, More Walks Pet Supply Drive
From June 17th, 2022 to July 28th, 2022, Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative held the Less Talk, More Walks Pet Supply Drive to support the animals at Father John's Animal House, a local shelter in Lafayette, NJ. Sussex Rural previously asked its members for their help in collecting supplies for Father John's Animal House in early 2020. SREC teamed up with other community partners to expand this next collection drive beyond SREC members to include the whole community, and ultimately ended up collecting 775 lbs of pet food and supplies for the animals at Father John's!
Donations were collected at Franklin Sussex Automall, at 315 NJ-23, Sussex, NJ 07461. We began this supply drive with a collaboration with iHeart Media Sussex's Pet of the Week segment with Steve Allan, filmed at Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative's office on June 16th. Another Pet of the Week episode, filmed at Franklin-Sussex Auto Mall on July 28th, capped off the drive. If you missed it, you can find it here.
We are incredibly proud of the results of this community effort that will go on to help rescue animals at Father John's, as well as other local shelters that they share supplies with. Thank you for helping supporting animals in need in our community!
Before the conclusion of this supply drive, SREC also produced a video spotlighting pet adoption and how it fits into the Concern for Community that drives us as a co-op.
Holiday Food Drive 2021
While our office remains closed to the public, we at Sussex Rural Electric once again sponsored a collection drive. We called on our members to make donations of nonperishable, shelf-stable, and canned food items to benefit the Sussex County Division of Social Services' food pantry. This collection drive ran from November 1st, 2021 to December 16th, 2021. As the holidays grew nearer and temperatures began to drop, it was all the more important to provide essential food items to those in need.
Members were able to stop by our office with their donation items. While our lobby was closed to the public, members arriving with food items could ring the doorbell by the main entrance and leave their donations in our vestibule once buzzed inside by our member services staff.
Father John's Animal House Collection Drive
After hosting several successful donation drives to support underprivileged members of our community, SREC shifted focus to helping another group that needs support, animals without homes. From February 6 - March 5, 2020, Sussex Rural Electric hosted a supply drive to benefit Father John's Animal House in Lafayette. We partnered with iHeart Media to make this possible. We hosted Steve Allan and the 102.3 WSUS team at our office to film episodes of the Pet of the Week, featuring animals from Father John's, to start and end this collection drive.
At the end of the month-long collection, it was clear that our members pulled off something amazing! Overall, we collected over 330 pounds of pet food, along with a plethora of other items such as pet toys and other supplies, office supplies, and cleaning items. We are proud to have also presented the good people from Father John's with a check for $1,000 from our community action fund. This comes from a fund of capital credits that have remained unclaimed by former members. Since we cannot reach these members and we are a not-for-profit organization, we choose to reinvest this money back into the community when we can.
We are proud to support great, local organizations like Father John's Animal House. If you are looking to add a new furry friend to your family, please consider adopting an animal from a shelter instead of buying one from a pet store. You can find more information about Father John's Animal House at https://www.fatherjohns.org/.
Holiday Toy Drive
In 2018 and 2019, Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative has hosted a toy drive on behalf of Family Promise of Sussex County. We collected donations of toys and new or lightly used winter clothing for the children and families of our communities who have or will experience homelessness. Families now comprise as high as 35% of the homeless population. 1 in 5 homeless people is a child.
During these drives, we have called on our membership to help make these children's holidays a little brighter, and they answered that call! After the collection ended, we had over 80 individual gifts that Family Promise could give to a child in need. We rewarded our members' kind donations with a free four-pack of LED light bulbs.
Donations were distributed as gifts to local children at Family Promise of Sussex County's annual client Christmas party.
Stand Down for Veterans Clothing Drive
In May of 2019, we hosted a supply drive to collect clothing items for our county's population of homeless veterans. The new or lightly used clothing, as well as hygiene and toiletry items, donated by our members was distributed to these veterans at Pass It Along's Stand Down for Veterans event. This event welcomes homeless military veterans and in addition to clothing offers them free haircuts, warm meals, access to resources such as medical, legal, and mental health consultation.
At the end of the collection, our members had donated over 600 pounds of clothing and hygiene items to be given to veterans at this event! We are incredibly proud to have such generous members. As a reward for our members' kindness, we gave away a free four-pack of LED light bulbs for every donation.