Help 'rains' down on families for holidays
RAINE provides food, meals for Thanksgiving to Bayshore families
BY JAMIE ROMM Staff Writer

The gymnasium of the Beers Street School is filled with bicycles collected during a toy drive held by Reaching All in Need Everyday (RAINE), a nonprofit that holds toy and food drives for distribution to families in need during the holiday season.

HAZLET — While everyone hopes for fair weather on Thanksgiving Day, there is one thing for sure in the Bayshore area: the forecast calls for RAINE.

RAINE — Reaching All in Need Everyday — is a nonprofit organization established to help families in the Bayshore community primarily during the holiday season.

RAINE founder Patti Dickens outlined this year's busy schedule.

"We will be delivering food to families on Thanksgiving such as turkey and everything that goes with the holiday," Dickens said. "All of the meals will be hot meals."

She said that the nonprofit delivers food to more than 60 families on Thanksgiving Day, and on Christmas it reaches out to 200 families.

"It's amazing how many families we get to reach out to," Dickens said. "The numbers rise every year."

She said that RAINE would be helping out the Hazlet Recreation Department, which has a Thanksgiving dinner for families who would not otherwise have the meal.

"We give them a hot meal and a chance to bring home leftovers to eat for another meal," Dickens said.

According to Dickens, RAINE started as a grassroots effort with a group of personal friends who also had been donating food and toys for years.

But in 2001 after 9/1l, she received a call from Raritan High School Principal Colleen Rafter to help with the school's plan to "adopt" a family affected by the tragedy.

"We started right away and did a toy drive and found families who were impacted and brought Santa to their doors," Dickens said. "When the following year came around, we got a phone call basically asking for us to help with the same thing."

She said after that, the group decided to become a nonprofit, a small group with the right people involved.

"We had the superintendent, the chief of police and public officials involved," Dickens said. "We spread ourselves out and have grown to a point where we have filled the gym with toys every year."

She said that the group has received support from throughout the Bayshore and every school in Hazlet, and many businesses support the group with toy drives and food drives.

"It's become wild," Dickens said. "Where we are now is amazing."

She said that currently there are 60 women who meet once a month to cook meals for families.

"We have so many people who want to help," Dickens said. "I thought I was exaggerating a little when I said 60 women, but when I think about it, we really do have that many."

RAINE's volunteer army is growing rapidly, and is estimated to number 350 people, surpassing previous years.

Volunteers are gathering at weekly meetings at Hazlet Township schools to gather food donations, pack holiday meals, plan deliveries and raise funds.

An event that is also being prepared for is the annual RAINE gala, the group's only fundraiser that will take place on Dec. 11.

The cocktail party, which will be held at Jacques Reception Center, is selling tickets for $25, and with 500 seats available, Dickens expects a sellout.

In past years the tickets were sold for $40 and included an auction with prizes including tickets for the New York Rangers, a GPS and a 50/50 raffle.

"We lowered the price this year due to the economy to get people to come out," Dickens said. "We expect a full house."

A "sister" organization is the Kenneth F. Teitjen Foundation, and over the years Dickens said the foundation has provided the group with bicycles and large toys for the families RAINE helps.

"They've given us about 500 bikes," Dickens said. "We've filled gyms with them."

An offshoot of the group is the DROPS of RAINE, a group made up of children in the community who want to help as well.

"My son won a $100 and spent 20 of it on a video game but gave the rest to RAINE," Dickens said. "I swear I didn't push it. Another student wrote a letter saying that he was going to do odd jobs around the community and donate the money raised to RAINE."

She said in DROPS of RAINE, the youths do their own thing to make an impact.

"The main thing is that we are not about fundraising, we are about giving to the community be it with food or toys."

At a recent meeting at Beers Street School, there were 42 children present, busily making Thanksgiving Day placemats to be tucked into food baskets.

When the pantry at Holmdel's St. Benedict Church was bare recently, RAINE offered to donate leftover food donations.

In return, the parish has adopted RAINE as its Advent project, and students at St. Benedict School are raising funds through bake sales and donations through DROPS of RAINE.

Local businesses have adopted RAINE as well. Remson Dodge is allowing the group to use eight new vans for food delivery. DNA Salon in Holmdel is conducting a toy drive and SteinMart is putting up a giving tree for customers to help RAINE recipients. Middletown Foodtown is holding a food drive.

The group recently launched a Web site, www.rainefoundation.com, with information for families that need help as well as information on how to volunteer or donate.

Contact Jamie Romm at jromm@gmnews.com