Kids & Family

Parsippany Part of County-Wide Food Drive to Help Hungry

Parsippany's working poor may be hard to find, but they exist—and a new Morris County effort is underway to help them.

To address the this September, which is Hunger Awareness Month, the Morris County Youth Center is launching a new initiative: the Morris County Municipal Action To Curb Hunger.  McMATCH is a county-wide drive to gather food to help restock the shelves at Morris Plains' Interfaith Food Pantry and other local food providers, including the 's Food Pantry.

The initiative also offers an incentive to promote donations. Organizers are turning the food drive into a competition that pits the county's municipalities against towns of similar size. Food donations will be weighed and financial contributions will be converted to pounds ($1 = 1 pound) to determine division winners. Winning municipalities will receive recognition—and bragging rights.

Parsippany is in Division 3, matched against Mount Olive.  Check out the leaderboard to see how the township is doing.

To participate, donate nonperishable food items to the Parsippany Emergency Food Pantry.  Collection boxes will be placed in various township sites including , Headquarters, the Parsippany Library's , and branches, the Parks and Recreation office on Knoll Road, the and the Community Center.

People also can take part via the website YouGiveGoods.com

Find out what's happening in Parsippanywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“Our recently introduced food drive contest system is a perfect fit for McMATCH and we’re thrilled to be able to support it,” said Patrick O’Neill, CEO of YouGiveGoods. “I think the towns that are running drives on our website find it an easy way to let their community help out.  It’s also a great way to reduce the amount of staff time that would be involved in a traditional drive.”

Contests for each division, including Parsippany's Division 3, can be found at YouGiveGoods.

Find out what's happening in Parsippanywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

McMATCH runs through Sept. 24. An awards ceremony hosted by the Morris County Department of Human Services takes place Sept. 28 to honor the towns that collect the most food.

Program sponsors include the Morris County Department of Human Services,  Interfaith Food Pantry, Curbing Hunger, Inc. and Volunteer Management Centers.

For more information on the local McMATCH effort, call the Parsippany Office of Human Services at 973-263-7163.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here