Community Corner

Hopatcong Pair Help Women's Club Collect Food

Club collects more than 3,000 pounds in 2011. Tom and Carolyn Lynch were a big reason why.

Sometimes Tom Lynch and his wife, Carolyn, wake up to a minivan filled with cans of soup or vegetables.

"We don't lock it and people know it's our car," Carolyn Lynch said.

Hopatcong's Women's Club collected 3,062 pounds of food in 2011. It probably couldn't have done it without Tom, 83, and Carolyn, 78, who pick up the goods from several spots around the borough each Friday night.

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The club's donation buckets can be found in Hopatcong at , the and the post office and in Landing at the Hopatcong Family Practice.

The club started the collections six years ago as part of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs initiative. But when the statewide effort ended after two years, the club continued collecting food, which gets donated to the Save The People food bank at in Hopatcong.

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Tom Lynch said their reason for owning the task, which usually takes an hour and begins at the municipal building, was simple.

"Somebody had to do it," he said, "and it looked like we were the best people around at the time."

Tom Lynch usually drives to each location with his wife and empties the bins, which are often full, his wife said. Then Tom weighs the food on an antique fish scale he keeps in the bank of his minivan.

"If anything, I look like a fish peddler," he said.

The couple have never gone a week where there wasn't at least something in a bin, Carolyn Lynch said. Hopatcong has responded well to the drive, she said.

"The people here have responded almost better than any community in Sussex County that I know if," she said. "The people in Hopatcong are very generous."

People trust the Women's Club donation bins because they know they reach the right people, Carolyn Lynch said. "We've developed a trust within the town," she said.

"They know it gets picked up and it gets delivered and we don't put a halo on."

People who donate like to know their donations are picked up quickly, Tom Lynch said.

"You have to pick up the food on a regular basis so people see the food disappearing," he said. "There's nothing worse than dropping off a couple of cans and seeing them laying around a couple of weeks."


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