If a teenager ever knocked on your door holding a yellow bag and a short speech, you already know how this story goes. You went to the pantry. You came back with soup, pasta, and the peanut butter you were saving for yourself. The bag went out heavier than it came in.
Now picture thousands of those doors, all across New Jersey. What you get is a football field where you cannot see the grass.
On Sunday, October 25, hundreds of students from across Monmouth County carried bright yellow bags onto the field at Howell High School. They set them down in rows along the full 100 yards. The morning was chilly and sunny. The goal for the day was 100,000 pounds of food.
They passed it twice over. Dermer Dreams, the nonprofit that runs the drive, posted the final tally on its website: more than 250,000 pounds, a record for the group. All of it went to food banks across the state.
How 100 Empty Bags Become a Field
The idea behind the drive is simple enough to explain on a doorstep. A student signs up as a neighborhood captain and receives 100 empty donation bags two weeks before the drive. The student comes up with a plan to fill them. On collection day, the student and a parent bring the full bags to a drop site and leave with a certificate for 10 hours of community service.
Jeremy Braverman, the principal at Howell High School, summed it up for the Asbury Park Press. “Each kid gets a hundred bags, and then it is their job to get those bags filled however they want to do that,” he said.
Howell has been building toward this for a few years. In its first year with the program, Braverman said, the school collected about 20,000 pounds and dropped it at a fire station in Fair Haven. The next year Howell became a drop site and brought in about 55,000 pounds. Last year the figure was 75,000.
The plan this year had about 350 Howell students taking 100 bags each. Five elementary and middle schools in Howell Township were expected to add close to 2,000 more.
What a Full Truck Means in January
The food did not stay on the field. The plan called for the football team to show up at 3 p.m. and carry the bags straight onto trucks from the food banks. Fulfill and Lunch Break were among those lined up, with 15 rented U-Hauls bound for Howell, Freehold Borough, Red Bank, and other stops.
Daniel Dermer, who founded the group with Alyse Dermer, has a blunt way of describing the timing problem. People talk about hunger for a few weeks before Thanksgiving, he said, and stop the moment the season turns to gifts. A field like this one is meant to keep pantry shelves stocked through the whole winter.
Last year Braverman dropped off a 40-foot U-Haul at Open Door in Freehold and asked a woman there how long the food would last. Probably three to four weeks, she told him.
Wallace Woods of Lunch Break, a nonprofit in Red Bank, told News 12 New Jersey what the bags mean on his end. Every one that arrives frees up money the organization can spend elsewhere, such as helping people find housing.
The Part That Outlasts the Food
The groceries matter. So does the habit. Stacy Gregorakis, the social studies teacher who helped organize the day at Howell, said the drive lets students put classroom lessons to work: managing money, getting the word out, organizing people.
One of those students, senior Madison Moore, handed her bags to her neighbors. “I’m so excited. I was able to give my bags to my neighbors and they all filled it with gratitude. They were so amazing,” she said.
The Dermers did not start with high schools. As Patch recounted, they began after Superstorm Sandy by hanging bags on the doors of thousands of Manhattan apartments. A letter asked residents to fill them and leave them in the lobby on a set date. Thousands of pounds came back.
They later moved to New Jersey and, in 2019, handed the idea to students. The running total now stands at more than one million pounds.
Braverman does not sound surprised by any of it. “Kids will step up to the plate,” he said. “All you got to do is just believe in a kid and great things happen.”
The field is grass again. The next drive is already on the calendar for October 2027. The doorstep, though, is open all year, and the next time a yellow bag turns up on yours, you know exactly how this story goes.