West Grove resident Jack Merritt, a retired management consultant, delivered donated items to fight the coronavirus pandemic to Ocean City, N.J., in his private plane, writes Tim Kelly for OCNJ Daily.

Ocean City’s reigning Mr. Mature America solicited his Chester County neighbors on social media to donate much-needed items such as medical-grade masks, latex gloves, and household supplies.

Then, he loaded these items into his 1967 vintage Mooney aircraft on May 1 and dropped them off at Ocean City Municipal Airport, where volunteers collected the planeload of supplies for further distribution.

“This is another example of a second-home owner with a profound love of Ocean City,” said Drew Fasy, OCNJ CARE chairman. “(Merritt) is wanting to help and is in a position to do so. We are extremely grateful to Jack.”

Before the pandemic, Merritt used the plane he nicknamed “Matilda” for pleasure flights with his wife, Julia, and to facilitate animal rescues.

As part of the latter effort, he has crisscrossed “every state east of the Mississippi and a few to the west,” he said, to deliver thousands of rescue animals to their loving forever homes.

Read more about Jack Merritt at OCNJ Daily here.

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