To the Editor:
On behalf of my wife and myself, we would like to show our gratitude to a man that goes out of his way every year to make time to cook and slice over 150 turkeys while he runs his successful VIP restaurant. Panagiotis (Pete) Pagonas and his family help us to feed between 500 and 600 poor, shut-ins, and homeless people. Pete and his family have been helping us close to 10 years and there is no way we could handle this project without their assistance.
We would also like to thank the following for their donations of turkeys: Mayor Steven Fulop, Senator Brian Stack, Freeholder William O’Dea, Councilman Richard Boggiano, Freeholder Junior Maldonado, County Executive Thomas DeGise, Sean Connors, and Joseph Mulligan from Minuteman Press.
The local merchants who donated hundreds of desserts also deserve a thank you. There are too many to mention. Last but not least, the hard-working staff who helped put this together. They worked hard in the kitchen, serving dinners, desserts, and delivering meals, and gathering donations, cannot be forgotten.
Many thanks to the 100 volunteers who came from all over the state, they were from Union County, Sea Girt, Secaucus, Brick, Belmar, Rutherford, Bloomfield, and Bayonne.
We saved the best for last, Father Michael C. Santoro, our pastor from Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and St. John the Baptist churches, who worked diligently with us to make this a big success.
JIMMY AND COOKIE KING