He Did It! Joe Leone No Longer Has to Sleep in This Box

After dedicating 7 days and nights to sleeping like a homeless person in a box outside in those awful downpours and chilly temperatures in both Asbury Park and Point Pleasant Beach, Chef Joe Leone has done what he set out to do.

He said he would sleep in that now soaking-wet box and not go home until he raised $50,000 for Covenant House to help homeless teens that are sleeping under our boardwalks in Monmouth and Ocean Counties because they don't have a home to go to.

These are not teens who are drug addicts and gang members. But some of their parents are. Or they have been severely neglected or abused or in poverty and have no place to go.

Some of these teens go to school each day, play sports, hang out with friends, and never tell a soul that when all their friends go home...they are going to sleep under the boardwalk. They sometimes steal a shower at school or try and stay inside the school when the weather is cold out, just to not freeze in the bad weather.

Joe Leone has spent the past several years riding around with Covenant House and talking to these teens, trying to get them to go to the already existing Covenant Houses up north to get shelter, but these teens don't want to leave the area they grew up in and their friends...because that's all they've got.

So Covenant House has broken ground on a property in Asbury Park, and, with enough donations,  will build a new Covenant House soon and give these Monmouth and Ocean County homeless teens a safe place to go.

Thanks, Joe Leone, for all of the awareness you have brought to us through all you are doing to help this great cause. He reached over $51,000 by last evening.

If you'd like to hear how Joe's experience went, listen to our morning show between 7:45 and 8:30 am this Friday, or come meet Joe Leone at our NJNG Asbury Park Boardwalk Studio (3rd and Boardwalk!)