‘Great Americans are everywhere'

MONROE-“Great Americans are everywhere.” That’s how Great American Weekend Co-Chairperson Liz LaMontanaro described the community’s response to the group’s call for help last week for a way to get surplus T-shirts down to the storm-ravaged areas of the Gulf region. The first organization to respond was a group from Monroe Temple Beth El. The drive also gave the Great American Weekend committee a chance to once again partner with ShopRite and Wakefern, which has provided a refrigerator truck for the weekend for the last several years. Goshen resident Thomas Burrows, along with Betsy Utnick and Fred Pressman, all members of the Monroe temple, were already organizing a drive for donations to be taken to Utica, Miss., just outside of Jackson. Pressman, a Wakefern employee and congregant at the Monroe temple, had arranged for the donation of a tractor-trailer to take the supplies and donations to Mississippi. Members of the Silver Eagles, a local group of retired drivers, volunteered for the mission of driving the truck and its contents down south. The temple also received generous donations from BJ’s and Stop & Shop, $1,000 from Tony Bruce of Monroe Ford to cover the truck’s expenses during the trip, and local residents came forward with donations of clothing, toys and toiletries to fill the truck in only a few days. The donations will go to a camp and from there will be distributed to needy individuals throughout the Jackson area. Burrows explained that reformed synagogues all over the country are conducting similar drives through Operation Jacob’s Ladder.