Social club delivers special gifts
BY TOYNETT HALL Staff Writer

LAKEWOOD - Instead of participating in a Santa grab bag this Christmas during which acquaintances exchange gifts with one another, residents of Lakewood's Horizons at Woodlake Greens adult community have decided to give gifts to the people who they say deserve them the most.

Diane Rotondelli, Cynthia Barnes and Carol Dunbar are just three residents out of a development of about 100 families who have come together bearing gifts for the needy and the elderly at two area locations.

The two entities that will receive holiday offerings from the residents of Horizons this year are the Burnt Tavern Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Brick Township and the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Ocean County in Toms River.

The idea emerged from Rotondelli, who co-chairs the Horizons at Woodlake Greens Social Club committee.

"We are a fairly new development. We are an active adult community and we felt that we should give something back to our neighborhood," she said. "Why exchange gifts with each other when we could put the money to better use?"

According to Rotondelli, the group members will be distributing about 200 boxes filled with toiletries for the elderly residents at the Burnt Tavern Rehabilitation and Health Care Center.

In addition to that generous effort, two families from the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Ocean County, a nonprofit, interfaith ministry committed to providing shelter, meals and assistance to homeless families, will receive donations and gifts such as bedding from the Social Club.

Rotondelli is hoping to make this an annual event, or perhaps even more often.

"We need to take care of our older generation," she said.

Barnes, who co-chairs the Social Club committee, shares Rotondelli's sentiments. Her mother resides at the Burnt Tavern facility.

"My mom has been in the nursing home for about five years and what I have noticed from visiting her is that sometimes there are people who get no visitors at all. They have family members who live far away, or worse, they have no one," Barnes said.

The Social Club's gesture of providing gifts "will brighten their day. It is something extra" they can look forward to, she said.

Barnes said the community service projects not only allow her to give something back to the community, they also give her a chance to get to know her neighbors since she moved to Horizons from Essex County last August.

Tina Naperski, the recreation director of the Burnt Tavern Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, said she is glad the outside community has not forgotten about its seniors.

As Naperski put it, "You are never to old for Christmas."

Dunbar said she is happy to volunteer and wants to make somebody's holiday a little brighter.

"I feel so blessed to have so much that I wanted to share it with less fortunate people. Whatever I can do to help benefits not only those who are in need, but myself as well," she said.

Patricia Cash, network director of Interfaith Hospitality Network of Ocean County, said she is thrilled about the effort put forth by the members of the Horizons Social Club.

"A lot of people donate to Interfaith instead of doing gift exchanges. As early as August, Interfaith receives a list of necessities from families in need and we connect those people with folks like Diane Rotondelli and the 12 congregations that support us to help provide a nice holiday for everyone," Cash said. "I have found that people want to give; show them ways they can contribute and help, and they will do it."

Cash said if everyone helped in a small way, it would lift or ease the burden that homelessness causes.

"Many hands make the work light," she said