November 27, 2012:  He drove a seventeen foot U-Haul over seven hours in the driving rain.  Most people would be tired after a drive like that but when he finally reached his destination Dennis Cropper, Executive Director of Rockbridge Area Community Services (RACS) in Lexington, VA, was still full of energy as he stepped out of the driver’s seat to greet John Mans, President and CEO of Monmouth County NJ’s CPC Behavioral Healthcare. 

Shaking hands with Mans, Cropper smiled and said, “Good to meet you.  Glad we can help.”

Cropper had driven up from RACS to deliver donations to consumers of CPC’s mental health and special education services.  Graciously accepting the Agency’s thanks, he was quick to point out that though he initiated the effort, it was the employees of Rockbridge that carried through on the project,  “They are amazing and worked so hard to bring this all together,” Cropper told the six CPC staff unloading the truck.  It took over forty-five minutes to empty the 17 foot compartment of all the clothes, toys, cleaning supplies and other essentials that had been donated.

Stella Santora, Director of Health Information Management and Patient Accounts for CPC, was the primary contact between Cropper’s agency and CPC.  “Dennis and his team have done this before – reached out to victims of disaster and provided comfort and assistance.  There is no way to express how much their gifts will mean to the people who are receiving them.  It’s a tremendously generous and kind thing they’ve done.”

CPC and Rockbridge both provide mental and behavioral healthcare services and both are regional non-profits serving both insured and underinsured/uninsured consumers.  Both agencies are among a handful of technology “first-adopters” in community non-profit behavioral health organizations, using a fully-integrated health information technologies product, Psych Consult, to improve outcomes for their consumers.  Rockbridge learned of CPC and its location in hard-hit Monmouth County, NJ through a user group affiliation. 

The truck delivered its contents to CPC’s screen printing shop on Pine Street in Eatontown, NJ.  CPC Screen Printing is a socially-responsible business producing quality screen-printed items in a shop that employs adults who are in recovery from mental illness and/or disabilities. 

Many CPC customers lost everything during the storm.  Please call the Agency at:  732-935-2222 if you would like to help CPC provide relief to victims of Sandy.