As we continue to face trying times during the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency personnel have been selflessly working around the clock to meet the challenges faced in the field. SUEZ and The Shauger Group (TSG) remain grateful to—and humbled by—every first responder and emergency worker for their bravery on the front lines. In another gesture to show their gratitude and support for essential workers fighting COVID-19, SUEZ and TSG have once again teamed up to donate several hundred more meals to essential workers.
On April 24 and April 27, SUEZ and TSG donated 575 meals and 10 pizzas to essential workers throughout northern New Jersey. The meals were provided to emergency personnel at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, East Orange General Hospital, Jersey City Medical Center, Christ Hospital in Jersey City, the Jersey City Emergency Services Unit, the Jersey City Office of Emergency Management, the Jersey City Fire Department, the Jersey City Municipal Utilities Authority, the Kearny Fire Department, the Kearny Police Department, and the City of Orange Township.
“We’re honored to team up with SUEZ again to donate lunches to emergency personnel—it is great as a team to be able to do a little something to say thank-you to hundreds of people who are on the front lines for all of us,” said Donald Shauger, Vice President of TSG. “We are blessed that all the first responders are protecting us twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We want to make sure they know that their sacrifice has not gone unnoticed. Their heroic efforts will get us through this extraordinarily difficult time.”
“What we are seeing is that the need to support our communities is only become greater as the weeks go by,” said Xavier Castro, President of Environmental Services for SUEZ North America. “As a company, SUEZ is prioritizing these efforts across the country and has even launched an employee giving campaign with a dollar-for-dollar match from our SUEZ North America Foundation. By working with our local partners to identify the most vulnerable groups and finding different ways to give back, we are able to provide much needed resources that each community needs to fight against the spread of COVID-19.”
TSG also donated an additional 235 meals and 55 pizzas this week to emergency room workers at University Hospital in Newark, first responders in the Bloomfield Police Department, emergency workers in the Township of Irvington, first responders in East Orange, and first responders in the West Orange Police Department. TSG also recently made a food donation to Ebenezer Baptist Church’s food pantry in Orange.
The 810 meals donated on Friday and Monday consisted of freshly made, individually prepackaged sandwiches, along with a prepackaged dessert, a fresh fruit cup, a bag of chips, and a drink. SUEZ and TSG worked with Classic Café Management in East Hanover to provide those individual meals. As a way of contributing to the donation effort, Classic Café Management allowed SUEZ and TSG to purchase the food at an amount lower than Classic Café’s cost.
La Pizza in Roseland and Calabria Restaurant & Pizzeria in Livingston, which provided the pizza pies, also were generous in wanting to pitch in as well—eager to help, both La Pizza and Calabria offered discounts on the pizza prices when they learned the pies were being donated to emergency personnel fighting COVID-19.
SUEZ and TSG also teamed up last month to donate several meals to workers in police departments, fire departments, emergency services units, medical centers, hospitals, and offices of emergency management as well. Together, SUEZ and TSG partnered to donate 475 meals as part of their March donation—aside from their joint donation effort at the time, SUEZ and TSG each also provided hundreds of additional meals to emergency workers and first responders last month as well.
“We are all facing a time of true crisis now, but it has been nothing short of inspiring seeing all of the healthcare workers, emergency workers, and other essential workers putting their lives on the line to keep us all safe,” said Lisa Shauger, President/CEO of TSG. “They have been true heroes. No amount of thanks could ever be enough to let them know just how grateful we are for everything they’re doing for us. It is our honor and pleasure to do what we can for them, to show them just how much their sacrifices mean to us. None of us could have ever imagined the situation we’re all in now—we have been lucky to lean on these selfless individuals to guide us through it.”
“We are grateful that SUEZ is always eager to partner with us philanthropically—they are so committed to giving back, and we can always count on them to join us on donation efforts like this,” said Donald Shauger. “We’re also thankful to Classic Café Management, La Pizza, and Calabria for wanting to contribute on their end, knowing that the food would be going to those on the front lines fighting COVID-19. And above all, we’re indebted to every emergency worker helping in the battle against COVID-19—thank you from the bottom of our hearts for sacrificing so much to keep us all healthy and safe.”
For the latest updates on COVID-19 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), visit www.cdc.gov/coronavirus.
About The Shauger Group
Recognized for high-quality service, hands-on management, and a family team approach, The Shauger Group offers a wide spectrum of diversified construction and maintenance services to clients in the New York metropolitan region. Since 1981, The Shauger Group’s family-owned and operated business has earned a reputation as a leader in the industry and has fostered lasting relationships with a host of clients, vendors, and subcontractors alike. Serving clients in both the public and private sectors, The Shauger Group offers an extensive range of services, including construction, underground utility, landscaping, street sweeping, maintenance, snow removal, and emergency response services. Known for reliability, responsiveness, and quality work, The Shauger Group has become one of the largest private employers in East Orange, New Jersey, where its state-of-the-art headquarters house over 200 company-owned vehicles and pieces of equipment, as well as a complete fleet maintenance repair facility.
About SUEZ North America
SUEZ North America operates across all 50 states and Canada with 3,000 employees dedicated to environmental sustainability and smart and sustainable resource management. The company provides drinking water, wastewater and waste collection service to 6.7 million people on a daily basis; treats 560 million gallons of water and over 440 million gallons of wastewater each day; delivers water treatment and advanced network solutions to 16,000 industrial and municipal sites; processes 160,000 tons of waste for recycling; rehabilitates and maintains water assets for more than 4,000 municipal and industrial customers; and manages $4.1 billion in total assets. The company posted revenues of $1.1 billion in 2018 and is a subsidiary of Paris-based SUEZ.
About SUEZ
With 90,000 people on the five continents, SUEZ is a world leader in smart and sustainable resource management. We provide water and waste management solutions that enable cities and industries optimize their resource management and strengthen their environmental and economic performances, in line with regulatory standards. With the full potential of digital technologies and innovative solutions, the Group recovers 17 million tons of waste a year, produces 3.9 million tons of secondary raw materials and 7 TWh of local renewable energy. It also secures water resources, delivering wastewater treatment services to 58 million people and reusing 882 million m3 of wastewater. SUEZ generated total revenues of 18 billion euros in 2019.
