Morristown Area to Provide 'Relief Effort for the Shore'

We're going to go out on a limb here and potentially tick off some of those still without power in the Morristown area: It could be a lot worse.

If you haven't heard, while we took much worse of a beating here during Irene because the JCP&L substation got flooded, the Shore got hammered by Sandy. Parts of it just don't exist anymore.

Pop onto most New Jersey Patch sites today and you won't have too much trouble finding a hurricane-related story. Specifically, check out Toms River Patch and you will see its main post Friday morning discusses that township's "re-entry plan" for residents of its barrier islands, which were—well, words don't do it justice. Just click on the story.

"The whole fire department's wiped out," said . "There are still 14,000 without power. Homes crushed to bits. The damage is still incalculable."

The Morristown Fire Department recognizes the ongoing need. On Sunday, Veterans Day, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. their Speedwell Avenue building will be the location for "Relief Effort for the Shore." Bring your non-perishable goods, your clothing, your cleaning supplies. A full list of needed goods is on the included photo.

"We're going to have to keep this going," said Morristown firefighter Nick Prizzi. "It's really bad down there."

The plan is for the collected donations to be brought to Toms River as a Ground Zero distribution point. Supplies will then be handed out by several local organizations, which have been working pretty much 24-hours-a-day since Sandy hit.

"They're going to give it to the right people," he said. "They know who needs this and who needs that. It's their community."

And, as the Morristown area proved last year when , this community knows how to help others when it's needed.

Morristown resident Berit Ollestad, the mastermind behind that relief effort, said it was a "no-brainer" to help with this one here in her adopted home state.

"Those so generous and helpful and supportive for the Tuscaloosa, are the same folks we're reaching out to this time," she said. "It's important and I feel it's a privlege to be able to be part of something helpful like this here in New Jersey."

"It has to be done," Prizzi said. "A lot of people are willing to pitch in and that's great. We will do as much as we can, as much as we need to do."

Ollestad said if Sunday can be "over-the-top successful," it will make successive post-Sandy relief efforts that much easier. "Because, this isn't going to go away anytime soon," she said.