After 33 years, N.J. sheriff leads his final Thanksgiving food drive

Thirty-three years ago, not long after Armando Fontoura won the first term of his 11 terms as Essex County sheriff, he got a call from the nun in charge of the Newark location of Missionaries of Charity-St. Augustine, a women’s shelter, food pantry and soup kitchen personally dedicated in 1981 by the global missionary organization’s founder, Mother Teresa.
“So we went over there to take a look and see how we could look after them, working with the police and making sure they stay safe,” Fontoura recalled. “And when I got there, they were feeding people. ‘We do lunch and we do dinner.’ And I said, ‘Really? Wow.’”
Call it a miracle, but that complaint about a hole in the fence led to Fontoura’s launch of a Thanksgiving tradition that’s provided thousands of turkeys to Newark’s neediest.
The tradition continues this week, with about 50 officers delivering more than 500 turkeys plus related holiday fare to 44 pantries, soup kitchens and other food distribution sites on Monday and Tuesday during the sheriff’s Annual Thanksgiving Food Drive for Needy Families.
Every year, the drive lets Fontoura and uniformed and civilian employees of the state’s largest sheriff’s department give back to the community in a softer way than their usual duties transporting prisoners, patrolling county parks and buildings, serving subpoenas and eviction notices, processing ballistic evidence, and sniffing out bombs with K-9 colleagues.
But this year’s turkey drive is bittersweet. Fotoura, 81, will step down in January as the longest-tenured sheriff in Essex County’s history, and the two-day convoy of poultry and fixins will be his last.
“I had a wonderful career,” said Fontoura, who moved to Newark’s Ironbound section from his native Portugal as a 12-year-old boy who didn’t speak English. “I never expected I would have a job like this.”
“I could be an example of what America offers,” he added. “I couldn’t be more grateful.”
Fontoura, whose wife of 56 years, Mary, died two years ago, will spend his Thanksgiving in Chicago with one of his three daughters and her family.
Fontoura started his law enforcement career as a Newark Police officer in April 1967, three months before the city’s fiery unrest that left 26 people dead and accelerated a period of disinvestment and before a renaissance in recent decades.
He rose through the ranks of the department. After 19 years, he was appointed county undersheriff and interim sheriff in 1990, after his predecessor, Thomas D’Alessio, was elected county executive, only to resign amid a corruption scandal.
Fontoura has remained remarkably untainted by misconduct allegations throughout his tenure, which included the 9/11 terror attacks, a fentanyl-laced opioid crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As sheriff, there’s no better man out there,” said Morris County Sheriff James M. Gannon, a Republican past president of the Sheriffs Association of New Jersey. “He’s really done a phenomenal job in some tough times. I can’t say enough about him.”
Fontoura’s longtime Democrat colleague, Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, said the food drive exemplified Fontoura’s humane approach to law enforcement.
“For three and half decades, his annual turkey drive has provided families in need with Thanksgiving dinner, which is just one example of how Armando has made a positive difference in the lives of our residents,” DiVincenzo said in a statement. “I am proud to have him as a colleague and friend.”
With food prices up just 2% for the 12 months ending in October, inflation has not been nearly as steep this fall as in recent years, when soaring turkey prices put the holiday birds out of reach for many families while straining the resources of food pantries and soup kitchens.
But many families are still struggling to put food on the table, thanks in part to the end of pandemic-related protections and benefits, said Nicole Williams, a spokesperson for the non-profit Community Food Bank of New Jersey, which plans to distribute 85,000 turkeys and hams this year through its network of 800 pantries and soup kitchens statewide.
“The need has not relaxed at all,” Williams said. “Even though inflation has leveled out a little bit, prices of necessities are still really high, wages are stagnant, and it’s really a combination of factors that have made lines longer at pantries.”
To be sure, Fontoura’s food drive is just one of countless efforts around the state to minimize holiday hunger. Others in Newark, for example, include an annual turkey distribution by the United Community Corporation scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m. at Essex County West Side Park. On Friday, the Archdiocese of Newark’s Mercy House Newark location handed out 250 turkeys. In the Montclair Bikery’s annual 15-mile turkey ride on Sunday, cyclists used backpacks to haul turkeys purchased at a discount from the local ShopRite to the Human Needs Food Pantry.
Fontoura called the turkey drive “a labor of love” and said his successor, Democratic Sheriff-elect Amir Jones, vowed to continue the tradition.
Regarding the sheriff’s job more broadly, Fontoura said he hopes he won’t miss it, though he probably will. A graduate of the FBI’s National Academy and National Executive Institute, Fontoura has served on countless task forces with local, state and federal agencies, combatting human and drug trafficking, terrorism and every other kind of crime.
As sheriff, Fontoura presides over an agency with more than 500 employees and an annual budget of $42 million. During his tenure, he added bomb detection, ballistics, and other units tapped by law enforcement agencies throughout northern New Jersey.
Fountroura served on White House councils on drug control and anti-crime strategies and, in 1993, joined President Bill Clinton in addressing a forum on crime’s impact on healthcare costs at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick.
Even the turkey drive serves a law enforcement purpose, Fontoura said, by winning the trust of largely Black and brown people otherwise skeptical of law enforcement.
“You want the public to see you are a part of them,” he said. But now it’s time to move on.
“It’s young man’s job. It’s time for me to go, time for me to relax a little bit,” said Fontoura, who looks forward to devoting more time to his grandchildren and his golf game. Looking back on his career, he said, “It’s been a wonderful, wonderful experience.”
Nobody knows Jersey better than NJ.com Sign up to get breaking news alerts straight to your inbox.
Steve Strunsky may be reached at [email protected]