Date: May 15, 2021
Interviewee: Julie Andreola
Interviewer: Gillian Demetriou
Transcriber: Rev.com
Editor: Gillian Demetriou
Location: Zoom Meeting
Gillian Demetriou:
All right. Hi, welcome.
Julie Andreola:
Hi.
Gillian Demetriou:
So my name is Gillian Demetriou, I’m a research assistant with the Paradoxical Paradise African-American Oral History and Mapping Project of Asbury Park. Today is May 15th, 2021. And I’m here with Julie Andreola, am I saying that right?
Julie Andreola:
You got it. Yeah, you got it.
Gillian Demetriou:
And she is a co-founder of the Asbury Park Dinner Table. She has agreed to be interviewed today for the oral history portion of this project. This interview is being recorded with the permission of both parties. Thank you so much for joining me today, Julie, I really appreciate it.
Julie Andreola:
Thank you for the invitation. I’m excited.
Gillian Demetriou:
Great. Me too. Me too. So just to start off, can you tell me a little bit about your early life? Where were you born and raised? If you are a lifelong resident of Asbury Park, just describe what it was like growing up there a little bit?
Julie Andreola:
I’m not. I’ve lived in Asbury Park for about two years. I started life in Western New Jersey, Southwestern New Jersey, close to Philly, and my family moved to this area, to the Jersey Shore when I was in elementary school. I’m the younger of two sisters, a pretty typical suburban upbringing. My parents worked nine to five jobs, I played outside. I learned a term this week, I am part of the “Oregon Trail generation,” which I’m excited about. It’s a micro-generation between Gen X and Millennials, which is the analog childhood digital adulthood. Cell phones were just becoming a thing my senior year of high school and my teen years were the magic golden years of emo and pop punk in the aux. That’s kind of it.
Gillian Demetriou:
Cool. What brought you to Asbury Park?
Julie Andreola:
My partner lives here. My fiance, future husband lives here.
Gillian Demetriou:
Congratulations.
Julie Andreola:
Thank you.
Gillian Demetriou:
Can you talk a little bit about your educational background?
Julie Andreola:
Sure. So I actually went to Red Bank Regional High School. I was a graduate of the performing arts academy there. And I graduated from Monmouth University after that from the school of business- business marketing, chemistry minor. And after that I went to Columbia University to study fundraising and nonprofit management. And I have also done work toward a certification in event tourism. And I’m planning to go for a project management certification.
Gillian Demetriou:
Sorry, I’m just taking notes as you’re, I’m writing.
Julie Andreola:
Oh, okay.
Gillian Demetriou:
So if I take a couple seconds to ask you another question, it’s because I’m writing down what you said.
Julie Andreola:
Oh, do whatever you have to do.
Gillian Demetriou:
Great.
Julie Andreola:
I’m happy to send notes as well.
Gillian Demetriou:
Cool, cool, cool. And where did you work prior to where you work now?
Julie Andreola:
So point of clarification I don’t work for Asbury Park Dinner Table, I’m a volunteer.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah, yeah.
Julie Andreola:
But prior to this, I worked in university advancement at Drew University, which is the way academia says fundraising.
Gillian Demetriou:
Cool.
Julie Andreola:
Prior to that I was in healthcare fundraising.
Gillian Demetriou:
And so how do you feel that these other experiences helped prepare you to start the Asbury Park Dinner Table?
Julie Andreola:
It kind of came together actually pretty perfectly. So at Drew University, I worked in donor relations and people tend to think that the most important thing about fundraising is asking for money and it is, but just as important actually is taking care of your donors. What do I mean by that? I mean, you take care of the relationship the way you would any other, you share information, you’re transparent. You thank people as many times as you can, you make it fun. You remind them that the work we’re doing is important and it’s only possible because of the money they gave you. So my past work experience in donor relations really helped me understand that as a fledgling startup with literally no money in the bank and no background was only going to gain traction, was only going to grow by building really deep trust with our early donors.
And then my educational background in business administration and non-profit management really gave us the groundwork for incorporating a disaster relief 501-C3, documenting gifts, financial management, managing our board of trustees, which I serve as president. But I also coordinate all of our board activities. Our grant writing, a lot of that came from the hard and fast studying skills. And both of those also taught the other soft skills, knowing our limitations, knowing how to avoid mission drift, knowing what to delegate, when to delegate it, and knowing how to be accountable to each other and really learning to build working relationships deeply, deeply rooted in trust, which is essential when you’re all volunteers.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah.
Julie Andreola:
I know that was a lot, sorry.
Gillian Demetriou:
No, no, no, that’s why we’re recording. I just write down the main points and then whoever listens to this and transcribes it later gets all of the nitty gritty details. So how did you start the Asbury Park Dinner Table? And can you just explain a little bit about what it does?
Julie Andreola:
Sure. So our startups story, bear with me, because it’s a little long. But so March of last year, COVID-19, basically very quickly essentially sought to change our life drastically. Either by literally killing people, infecting people and keeping people out of work, filling everyone with fear and uncertainty and grief, last but not least forcing our local hospitality, our local restaurants to shut down, forcing more people on to unemployment and into a state of food insecurity. Many people these days live paycheck to paycheck. And so when you show up to work one day and say, “Hey, state mandating, we’re closing tomorrow.” You’re not going to have a paycheck next week. And so that became a very urgent need that we sought to remedy.
A good friend of mine, Kathy Kelly, who is, she’s a Monmouth alum too, actually I think she’s MA in history. Kathy is the owner of Paranormal Museum, but she’s also the co-founder of the business committee here in Asbury Park. She has this idea where- can we buy gift cards from the restaurants to maybe keep getting money in the door until they can reopen? And then of course in March, we didn’t know when that was going to be. And we also determined that that probably wasn’t going to be enough to keep people open. So we’re wringing our hands brainstorming how do we save the restaurants? And there’s this program actually in Providence, Rhode Island, of all places, very random I know, where you can stop into a pizza place and you can basically pay for a meal in advance. And they’ll put this little slip of paper up on the wall. And then anyone who needs a meal can just come in, grab a slip of paper, get a pizza slice, no questions asked.
So we kind of started working with that idea, but how to make it work because now you can’t actually go into a restaurant, everyone’s doing takeout. We essentially came up with the same idea though, we collect money and we buy takeout. So at the same time, where do we serve the food? We know that there are already food insecure people in Asbury Park. A little bit more than a third of the city here lives at or below the poverty line, which you, if you’re studying Asbury Park are probably aware of. And that number was about to grow because a lot of people just got laid off.
And so unfortunately the food insecure population was already here and it was growing. We just needed a place where we could connect and we could serve the food. My partner, Joe Grillo, who is not a Monmouth Alum, he’s a member of the Asbury Park school board and he’s also a really active community volunteer. And he got in touch with one of the churches in town, Second Baptist Church, Deacon Dan Harris. The church reached out saying, “Hey,” they’re kind of thinking the same way we are. “You’re going to have a lot of kids not going to school.” So along with a third of the city being at or below the poverty line, 90% of Asbury Park public school students are on free or reduced lunch. And about 80% of public school, students are considered economically disadvantaged.
So along with all the restaurants closing, the schools closed. And so the churches are sitting there saying, “Okay, well, we’re about to have not only people getting laid off, but kids rely on this source of food in school and now they’re not going to go to school.” And the school did do a pickup thing where you can go pick up the breakfast and lunch that you would normally have gotten, the school’s regular food vendor did that, but not everybody has transportation and can get to the school. Not all the parents are able to get there at the time that they were serving it. So that wasn’t exactly fail safe.
So Joe and Deacon Harris from Second Baptist church basically built this network of churches, got a few churches in town to sign on and say, “Yeah, we want to bring this to our ministry. We want to bring this to our congregation. You provide the food, we’ll serve the food.” Which is all a very long way of saying that we collect donations. We purchase take out meals and we serve them at churches around town.
Gillian Demetriou:
Fantastic. Great. And so what restaurants have you partnered with?
Julie Andreola:
So anyone in Asbury Park can participate. It’s not limited to any one kind of restaurant. Right now we are working with MOGO Korean Fusion Tacos, MacroBites Market, which is in the old Kula Cafe Space, they were previously a catering kind of deal and now they have a little storefront. Sammy’s Street Food, which is all Mediterranean, Pasta Vola, which is all handmade pastas, Langosta Lounge, which is, essentially Langosta Lounge and everything around it is kind of an empire and Asbury Park. DJs Delights, this small deli, Confections of a Rockstar, which is, I think a nationally recognized bakery. Raila, which is also a Mediterranean fusion. Over the course of the past year we’ve worked with about five or so others, including Don Street Bar.
Gillian Demetriou:
Very nice. That’s a nice variety. So there’s no-
Julie Andreola:
You know what? Where- I totally don’t know how this slipped my mind. We’re about to add Tito’s Creole Kitchen. So we’re going to have Creole food, Haitian food.
Gillian Demetriou:
Very cool. Sounds good. And was this an idea prior to the pandemic?
Julie Andreola:
No, this was literally that period of time where everyone’s sitting around mid March of last year, just on the phone, repeating the same information to each other about how we didn’t know what was going to happen next.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah.
Julie Andreola:
This kind of came up at that time.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. One big state of confusion.
Julie Andreola:
You had the same conversation, you know you did, you had the same conversation with everyone.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah.
Julie Andreola:
For six months.
Gillian Demetriou:
It would be over by May, going to be back and doing everything.
Julie Andreola:
Yeah.
Gillian Demetriou:
It seems you were a bit more productive with your time at home though.
Julie Andreola:
Our friend actually said so, right, we came from nothing to, at this point a year later, a little bit more than a year later, we’ve raised about $500,000 and we’ve served over 100,000 meals. And one of my friends said, “Oh, is this what overachievers do when you are literally trapped with nothing else to do?” Which the answer is yes.
Gillian Demetriou:
Well, it looks great. So I don’t think anyone’s complaining about what you did during quarantine. So speaking about your funding and your donations and stuff, so where does your funding come from mostly?
Julie Andreola:
It’s actually a pretty even split. So as I mentioned, we raised about $500 and I’m hoping that by next week it will be $520 and over $200,000 of that is in grants. About $120 is in major sponsorships. And the rest of it has been in small donations. And when I say small donations, I mean $0 to $1000.
Gillian Demetriou:
And you said you yourself volunteer, so I’m just assuming everybody volunteers?
Julie Andreola:
We are all volunteers, yeah.
Gillian Demetriou:
Oh, that’s great, all volunteers. And can you talk about the general demographic of the people that come for these meals?
Julie Andreola:
Yeah. It’s a pretty even lineup with the demographic of the city of Asbury Park. I don’t have exact numbers, but my estimate is 80 to 90% individuals of color, Black and Hispanic, the remainder of that is white. As I’d mentioned, a good chunk of the city, unfortunately does live at or below the poverty line. And if anything in the group that we serve varies from that is that we’ve seen a wider range economically. We’ve seen people who have mortgages and who are accustomed to a very comfortable lifestyle, but again, living paycheck to paycheck and are suddenly forced into this place where they’ve never needed to even think about what if I can’t pay for my food? So we did get a wider range of individuals economically, but I would say for the most part, the demographic has been pretty representative of the city.
Oh, you know what we got? People who work at restaurants also got laid off. And when you work at a restaurant, you get something that’s called a shift meal or sometimes it’s called a family meal. So this program came to replace the shift meal for a lot of people.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. And how do you determine who’s eligible for the meals?
Julie Andreola:
There are no requirements.
Gillian Demetriou:
No requirements, okay.
Julie Andreola:
It’s come by and take one, to the best of our knowledge the program has not been abused. If people are in a position where they’re showing up for a free meal, it’s usually because they need it.
Gillian Demetriou:
And can you discuss how the program has impacted the restaurants?
Julie Andreola:
Yeah. So in some cases it was that they got an extra $1,500 worth of business from us that week or in a given week, and that’s business they would not have otherwise had. So it’s helping people stay employed, it’s helping keep the lights on. One of the real advantages of working with us is that we place our orders three or four weeks in advance. So if you’re doing your volume buy for that week for your regular customers, and you’re adding in supplies to make 150 extra meals for us, you can keep your unit costs lower. We provide a little bit of ongoing security that way, in addition to the paycheck for actually making the meals.
Gillian Demetriou:
Cool.
Julie Andreola:
And actually we, this is a new development as well, some of them don’t need us anymore. The program worked, they got through to this little post COVID time, they got through to the high season and they don’t need us anymore. It’s the best news.
Gillian Demetriou:
That’s great. And then can you also talk about how you think the program has affected the people of Asbury Park, and the people you serve?
Julie Andreola:
Yeah. So Asbury Park as a whole, I would say really early on, everyone was scared. Nobody knows what to do, but everyone wants to do something. So we were providing a solution to a real-time problem, we were providing a sense of hope, we were providing an opportunity for people to act and do and be a part of a solution because we were doing, you could make a donation straight up, you could do a social media challenge, you could do a birthday fundraiser on Facebook. There were so many different ways you could do this through social media and feel like you were making a difference and helping and genuinely were helping. Throughout the pandemic we’ve been able to basically cross Main Street. And what I mean by that, in your study of Asbury Park, I’m sure you’ve noticed that there is a very vast difference between- hold on, my dogs might be about to freak out. That’s one of the beauties of Zoom, right? People are hearing in people’s homes. [laughter]
Gillian Demetriou:
[Laughter] Yeah, my cat’s sleeping right there. He’s knocked out this entire time, so I get it.
Julie Andreola:
So one of the things we did in some ways was connect the East side and the West side. And that is because we have a very obvious and robust source of food here, and half a mile away we have people who really need food. So it’s been introducing what we feel probably should have been a more obvious resource earlier. It’s also been, unexpected people have built relationships, different community partners met new people, and now they’re doing other good work that’s not even related to Asbury Park Dinner Table. We have done a lot more than just serve food. And to me, just serving food would have been enough.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. And how many volunteers do you have normally?
Julie Andreola:
40 to 50, that includes our behind the scenes people, people doing paperwork, myself, people doing social media, and then people actually serving the food.
Gillian Demetriou:
Very cool. And how do you feel the local government of Asbury has handled the pandemic so far?
Julie Andreola:
So I have to be clear that I’m speaking personally and not on behalf of Asbury Park Dinner Table. So I think they’ve done a good job, honestly, I feel we’ve been kept informed about infection rates as best as they have the information. They’ve made free tests, now they’re doing as many free vaccine clinics as possible. In terms of businesses, our main thoroughfare here, Cookman Avenue, where most of the restaurants and a lot of the little shops are, has been closed to cars. So that’s allowed stores and restaurants to expand their floor space basically. They had mask rules on the boardwalk, which I know people weren’t thrilled about, but they had no mask rules on the beach, which given that nobody could do indoor activities last year brought a ton of tourism, which we really needed. I think they’ve done a good job.
Gillian Demetriou:
Good. And do you think that the Asbury Park Dinner Table is going to continue to operate once the pandemic is over?
Julie Andreola:
Yeah, we have to. We’ve now been serving at least 400 meals a day, three days a week. At our peak we were doing a lot more than that. So we’re a reliable source of food for people now, we can’t just stop doing that because the restaurants are in a better position financially. So we’ve talked about maybe shifting to a model where we support new restaurants or maybe we branch out of Asbury Park. The model is scalable and flexible. So we’re confident it will continue, we’re just trying to figure out what that looks like. I also want to say, I don’t think we’re anywhere near over, so it’s not-
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah.
Julie Andreola:
It’s going to take years to recover from this.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. And food, oh my gosh, food insecurity is not a problem that’s going away just because the pandemic stops, so…
Julie Andreola:
It’s not going anywhere.
Gillian Demetriou:
It’s great what you’re doing. Yeah. Unfortunately.
Julie Andreola:
Yeah. But it’s been an interesting way of number one, people are just flicking through Facebook for a year. So now they’re seeing a lot more information about this.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah.
Julie Andreola:
They’re seeing work like what we’re doing and maybe people who didn’t realize it was as big of an issue as it is, their eyes have been opened quite a bit and it’s definitely motivating more people to care about it and do something about it.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. And how has the pandemic affected you personally?
Julie Andreola:
I got laid off before COVID and I was actually just restarting my job search around COVID, which was not a great time to start a job search.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah.
Julie Andreola:
So I haven’t been able to find a job that really fits. So it hasn’t been great, but I’m working on it. At the same time it’s a blessing and a curse because I was able to do Asbury Park Dinner Table and I was able to grow my network and add to my resume. Prior to Asbury Park Dinner Table, I had never written a hundred thousand dollars grant. Now I’ve written a hundred thousand dollar grant. I’ve, on a part-time basis with a network of, you know, trusting volunteers, we’ve done so much work. And so for me personally, that’s been a huge growth experience. Other than that, I picked up new hobbies. I spent a lot of time with my dogs and my family. I can’t say it’s been all bad.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. And last question, what are you most looking forward to when all this is over?
Julie Andreola:
Like I said, I don’t think it’s close to over, but we’ll get there. I – personally, I’m looking forward to reentering the workforce, getting back to normal life where we can kind of stop in a coffee shop and chat up 10 different people, even go to a bar without people, without having to have an assigned seat and wear a mask to get up. I’m looking forward to getting rid of masks, I’ve been very pro mask, I’m very pro-vaccine, but I am looking forward to actually being able to see people smile and seeing people’s facial expressions.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah, really. Have you been able to get a vaccine yet?
Julie Andreola:
Yes. Yeah.
Gillian Demetriou:
Cool. Very cool.
Julie Andreola:
Yeah. How about you?
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. I just got mine last week, my second one last week, so…
Julie Andreola:
We’re in the top five in the nation of people whose infection rates have slowed down, we’re top five.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah.
Julie Andreola:
To me it sounds good.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. It’s great. Well, that’s it for my questions. Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you would like to add?
Julie Andreola:
From me personally or my questions for you?
Gillian Demetriou:
Either or, if we didn’t cover anything that you wanted to talk about?
Julie Andreola:
I guess we didn’t really talk about the genesis of your project.
Gillian Demetriou:
Oh yeah. Let me just stop the recording and I’ll explain whatever you want to know.
Julie Andreola:
Okay. Okay.