Adopt a Home Project...

Foundation unveils Adopt A Home project

Undoing what Sandy did is goal

COLTS NECK — Bay Head Sgt. 1st Class William Hoffman flipped through photographs on his iPhone of homes destroyed by superstorm Sandy, some torn into pieces and others filled with sand and water.

Less than a third of the town’s residents, he estimates, are back home, many still trying to find their way through the rebuilding process.

Hoffman, a first responder after Sandy hit, said its efforts like the “Adopt A Home” program — which will provide storm victims building material or stipends for other items to help them to return home — are what his community needs to get back on its feet.

“Organizations like this are fantastic. If it weren’t for organizations like this (storm victims) wouldn’t have anything,” he said. “This is what we need to get back.”

The Foundation to Save the Jersey Shore, Inc. unveiled the “Adopt A Home” program Thursday night during a fundraiser in Colts Neck at the home of Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan and his wife Lexi.

The foundation will work with local nonprofits that have already screened applicants in need of Sandy aid and provide items that the storm victims haven’t already received elsewhere.

“This makes our donation dollars work harder by not duplicating (efforts),” said Warren Diamond, chairman of the foundation’s board of trustees. “Why does someone have to fill out applications when they have done it already?”

The Adopt A Home program will provide applicants one of four packages, from building materials to gift cards for furniture, appliances or home goods such as groceries or clothing.

The organization has already provided wallboard to help rebuild 35 homes and have helped gut 1,100 homes from Sayreville to Mantaloking.

The program will have income restrictions as well as requirements that recipients have already applied for aid through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and don’t have other insurance covering the items they are seeking from the Foundation to Save the Jersey Shore, Diamond said.

The program was well received by those who attended the fundraiser, many of whom either directly lost their homes or saw communities destroyed where they grew up or spent summers.

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