By: | December 1, 2025 | Philanthropy |
by Emma Sylvia
The greatest differences often begin with just one individual. One single spark of inspiration can ignite a movement that starts locally and continues to flourish across the country at large. That’s the goal for Daniel Dermer, the CEO and founder of Dermer Dreams, a grassroots nonprofit that engages New Jersey students in the fight against hunger. They recently hosted their most ambitious event yet, the 100 Yard Food Drive Challenge on October 26. Dermer talks about how the students of NJ showed up for the less fortunate, and what’s coming next for Dermer Dreams.
Stronger Than the Storm
Dermer is a proud Monmouth County local, he grew up in Freehold Township with his wife, Alyse, and is now a Fair Haven resident. Like so many New Jerseyans, the Dermers were greatly impacted by Superstorm Sandy. For Dermer, though, the hurricane inspired not tragedy, but change.
“Before the storm, I had already been dabbling in food drives to raise money for different charities,” Dermer says. “We saw this terrible disaster, and I saw an opportunity.” As a property manager in New York City, he put bags on the doorknobs of residents if they were interested in donating food. They picked up each bag and delivered it to shelters, the first inception of the Dermer Dreams Program. After achieving great success, they brought the program to New Jersey after moving to Fair Haven in 2019.
The help of the local community inspired them to come up with the Neighborhood Captain Program. Launched in 2019, this program engages students – who can sign up to be a Neighborhood Captain, which empowers them and provides them information on how to best collect food for their drop site – to join the fight against hunger.
“We include promotional materials and ask each student to create a business plan – raising money on Venmo, giving bags to parents, standing in front of supermarkets. They’re charged with creating their first business plan, and then they take these 100 yellow bags and go into their community and fill as many as possible.” The students, depending on bags filled, can then use this for volunteer hours required for various programs in their schools or places of worship.
Going Above and Beyond
Dermer himself was inspired by the great strides that the students were making, with their food drive in November of 2024 raising over 50,000 pounds of food at Rumson-Fair Haven High School (a similar event in Howell raised 40,000 pounds of food in their first few years as well). “I saw what these students are capable of,” Dermer recalls. “I had been running food drives for so long, and I said, ‘I’m tired of running these tired food drives. It’s time to make the 100 Yard Food Drive Challenge for the students.”
The goal: 100 students, each with 100 bags – to accumulate at least 50,000 pounds of food to cover the Rumson-Fair Haven football field from end zone to end zone.
“The schools partnered with us to promote how important this was,” he says.
The Challenge was a risk that Dermer was willing to take. The question lingered over him: Could they really fill the football field with donations? He was filled with trepidation, as once the bags were out there, he had no guarantee how much food was coming back to the Challenge.
“I have to personally thank every student, every parent, every principal, teacher, volunteer and sponsor who really made the challenge and unforgettable success. Not only did we fill the field with 50,000 beautiful, yellow bags, but we have surpassed our goal: We collected over 1,000,000 pounds of food for families facing food insecurity.”
A National Difference
At Dermer Dreams, they don’t judge people based on personal politics, race, creed or religion. Instead, they celebrate what a community really means. Hundreds of people from all walks of life joined Dermer Dreams on October 26 and filled the football field with donated food.
“If we can accomplish that, we can stop fighting about things and come together to find solutions,” Dermer says.
After the Challenge was said and done, Dermer sat at the football field at night and reflected. Though it was a success, there was still so much more to do.
“I just sat there crying, thinking about kids standing in shelters for food. A partner I was working with said to me, ‘It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it, and it’s getting worse every day.’ As much as it looks great for what we get to report to everyone, there’s incredible sadness that leaves me in tears to see what’s happening across the country,” he notes.
Dermer was fortunate to speak on CNN about the Challenge and the nonprofit. During the government shutdown, he was determined to step in to provide for those not just in New Jersey but across the country. Aside from the recent food insecurity crisis due to the shutdown, the country remains in a crisis in regard to both food and mental health. Dermer Dreams is now launching a National Food Drive Challenge, in order to repeat the success in Rumson-Fair Haven across the nation.
“We all come together across the country and recognize that the way this problem is going to be solved is by people,” Dermer proclaims. “Be a part of the Dermer Dreams Team across the whole country. We can come together and stop this fighting. It’s the people that are going to make the difference.”
To learn more about Dermer Dreams, visit dermerdreams.org or @dermerdreams on Instagram and Facebook.
