Little Leages Raising Awareness of Overlooked Need

The Fort Lee American and National Little Leagues are teaming up with a local volunteer this season to raise awareness of an often overlooked fundraising need.

Marlene Ceragno, of Fort Lee, started adult care briefs drives while studying for her masters degree in gerontology. The incontinence products, she says, are not only expensive, but have a stigma attached to them that often makes seniors reluctant to attend public functions such as the little league games where her latest drive will collect the products.

 “I just don’t want people to start withdrawing from life,” Ceragno says. “It’s getting out there that it’s not an embarrassing thing.”

While the problem is relatively common among seniors, she says, and reports show that 25 percent of New Jersey seniors have difficulty affording basic needs, Medicare and insurance fail to provide coverage to purchase the products.

“There’s no benefits, there’s no programs for them,” she said. “If you can’t afford food, you can’t afford these.”

The drives are easy to run, she says, requiring only a little publicity and a collection bin, and she has worked with the Center for Food Action to distribute the products to those in need.

Her last drive, in February at the New Synagogue in Fort Lee, collected 1,500 adult care briefs.

She hopes that by working with the little leagues, not only will the products flow in for those in need, but younger generations will grow to understand the issue so that stigma surrounding the use of adult briefs will dissipate.

“The earlier we start talking about it and the more we start talking about it,” she says, “hopefully the stigma will go away.”

Adult care briefs can be dropped off at games between May 1 and May 18. For further information, call Marlene Ceragno at 201-725-8928 or email her at mceragno@gmail.com.