South Jersey service group chips in to help "Safe Surrender"

For a few hours Sunday, they agreed to miss some of the Flyers playoff game and held off on those "Honey-do" lists of household chores.

Instead, the South Jersey Men's Club made nearly 400 peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for a group of eaters they'll never meet - men and women wanted on outstanding bench warrants for nonviolent offenses.

The sandwiches were just one slice of the rewards for hundreds of fugitives expected to turn themselves in over the next few days at an Atlantic City church as part of New Jersey's Fugitive Safe Surrender program. Though the program does not offer amnesty, it does offer a way to get cases resolved quickly, often without jail time.

More than 400 people wanted on charges such as disorderly conduct and failing to pay child support came forward Saturday, the first day of the four-day program at Grace Assembly of God Church.

Meanwhile, in Cherry Hill on Sunday, Bob Greenberg, immediate past president of the men's club, a service organization that supports a variety of community and Jewish groups, stood in front of a long table in the Betty and Milton Katz Jewish Community Center.

On each side of the table, three or four club members jabbed knives into jars of peanut butter and then smeared the spread on slices of white bread.

Next came the jelly. At the end of the day, 34 loaves of bread had been used.

"This is not neat work," Greenberg said.

At the end of the table, wives of two members neatly tucked the sandwiches into plastic bags.

A representative from the U.S. Marshals Service picked up their tasty work Sunday afternoon.

The men's club has made more than 4,000 sandwiches for the state's three Safe Surrender programs, which started in 2008. The group plans to make nearly 400 more Monday and Tuesday.

All the ingredients were donated by local businesses.

Why peanut butter over, say, tuna fish?

"Everybody loves it. It's easily donated," said Ed Silver, 70, a clinical social worker with a mental-health practice in Medford.

He said he hoped to get a local business in the next day or so to donate pastries as well.

It was swift work Sunday. An hour into the conveyor-style operation, the group had made 250 sandwiches. Only a few were lost to temptation.

Greenberg's wife, Marlene, said she could not resist a much-needed fix of white bread.

"There is nothing like peanut butter and jelly on white bread," she said, saying she keeps wheat bread at home only because of its nutritional value.

The Safe Surrender program will be staged from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, with cases adjudicated at temporary courtrooms a few blocks from Grace Assembly of God.

The U.S. Marshals Service started the program in 2005 in Cleveland after a city police officer was killed trying to capture a fugitive wanted on an outstanding warrant for a nonviolent offense.

In New Jersey, more than 10,000 fugitives have surrendered since 2008, when the first Safe Surrender program was held in Camden.

The program is led by the state Attorney General's Office and funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. The effort involves state, local, and county agencies in several South Jersey counties.

For members of the South Jersey Men's Club, their part is all about community service and charity, two tenets of Jewish tradition.

"It's a good feeling to give. It's fulfilling," Silver said. "It helps to balance out the trials and tribulations of life."