Northern Ocean Habitat for Humanity Receives Major Gift from Ferguson

Northern Ocean Habitat for Humanity Receives Major Gift from Ferguson

TOMS RIVER, NJ – Northern Ocean Habitat for Humanity is proud to announce that Ferguson Enterprises, the largest distributor of plumbing supplies in the United States, has donated a 2011 24-foot Freightliner M2 106 box truck to the organization.  A presentation ceremony will be held Thursday, August 8th at 10:00 am at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, 1214 Route 37 East, in Toms River.

The box truck will enable Habitat to continue to pick-up furniture and housewares from donors throughout the northern Ocean County area and offer it for sale at its ReStore thrift shop. Proceeds of all ReStore sales fund Habitat’s mission work to make safe, decent and affordable housing a reality for low-income homeowners in northern Ocean County.

“Our old truck was at the very end of its useful life, and it made no economic sense for us to continue to try to repair it,” said Gregg Wagner, ReStore Manager.  “We do 7-10 pickups a day in northern Ocean County and we were burning through a gallon of antifreeze every week. It was just unsustainable.”

“We can’t thank Ferguson enough for its generosity or thank Ferguson’s Northeast District Manager, Jim Golini, enough for all he did to make this possible. We are truly blessed to have a partner like Ferguson,” added ReStore Director, Marian Hodavance.

The truck donation is only the latest in a series of partnerships between Ferguson Enterprises and Northern Ocean Habitat for Humanity. In Fall 2018, Ferguson began supplying plumbing products free of charge to Northern Ocean Habitat as an in-kind donation for use in several home repair projects for Veterans, offered through Habitat’s Aging in Place and Critical Home Repair programs.  In the Spring of 2019, Ferguson expanded the program to make in-kind donations of its plumbing products available to others served through Northern Ocean Habitat’s Aging in Place and Critical Home Repair programs (https://nohfh.com/repairs).

“Together, Northern Ocean Habitat for Humanity and Ferguson are responding to the call to serve our community and provide housing repairs and modifications to those in critical need. I am extremely grateful to the Ferguson team,” said Suzan Fichtner, Northern Ocean Habitat’s Executive Director.

Northern Ocean Habitat for Humanity (https://nohfh.com) was founded in 1999 and has built 19 homes to date since its founding. Geographically at the “eye of the storm” when Superstorm Sandy hit Ocean County in October 2012, the organization mobilized to restore 60 homes ravaged by the storm for low-income homeowners and has completed a grand total of 286 low-income home repair projects since 2010.

Ferguson Enterprises LLC (https://www.ferguson.com) is the largest distributor of residential and commercial plumbing supplies, pipe, valves and fittings (PVF) in the United States. A diversified distributor that spans multiple businesses including HVAC/R, Waterworks and Industrial.  In the past 65 years Ferguson has grown from a local distributor to a $16.7 billion dollar company with more than 1,400 locations and over 27,000 associates nationwide.