By Lauren Wanko
NJ Today
Beach Haven West resident Joe Mangino is cleaning out a kitchen destroyed by the storm. Except it’s not his home. And before this day, the homeowner was a complete stranger.
“We lost our home. The first day we gutted it,” Mangino said. “The second day we opened our door and Mike Dunnelly, who’s a teacher at Stafford Township, was there with a group of other teachers. They came, they helped us gut our house and ever since then we’ve been going around town, helping everybody clean out their homes.”
Stafford Teachers and Residents Together, or S.T.A.R.T., was born soon after that. Now any homeowner who needs assistance calls Mangino or Dunnelly and a team of volunteers shows up at the front door, sleeves rolled up and ready to work. On this day they meet Ship Bottom homeowner Eileen Sondey for the first time.
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“This is a great group. They’ve been here all day and it’s free,” Sondey said. “I want to give them something and they won’t take anything.”
Volunteers tear down sheetrock and wet insulation, rip up floors and furniture and try to save anything they can.
“It’s hard. You know, the pieces of furniture, the appliances that’s fine. It’s when you take out the family pictures. That’s the stuff that gets to you,” Mangino said. “It’s the memories. Those are things we’re trying to help them keep. Some of them are lost.”
Sondey watches as those memories and her belongings are tossed in a massive pile on the front lawn.
“It’s devastating. You don’t realize what it’s going to entail until they actually do it. I mean, I didn’t think everything would go but it has to,” Sondey said.
“I was in their shoes so I know how they’re feeling,” Mangino said. “So to be able to come in while they’re crying and helping them get everything out of their house, and when you leave they’re still crying but they’re tears of joy because you’ve done something to help them.”
Since Sandy hit, S.T.A.R.T. has demolished more than 500 homes in shore communities devastated by the storm and more than 1,300 volunteers have joined the effort.
“Everybody needs something around here,” said volunteer Leanne Barenbaum. “It just kills me to see how much these people are going through and how much they’ve lost.”
Volunteer Rick Irwin said, “It’s the right thing to do and I am lucky I can do it, very lucky.”
Sandy didn’t just take Mangino’s home. He lost his entire small business too. But he says he’s found a new calling. After clean-up efforts are complete, S.T.A.R.T. plans to help storm victims rebuild.
“It’s definitely life changing, not because the storm made it life changing, but because the people I came in contact with are just unbelievable,” Mangino said.