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Stories From Main Street: Belmar Mayor's Young Daughter Spurred Initiative To Bring Home Sandy-Displaced Families

BELMAR, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- A push to bring the last two Belmar families displaced by Superstorm Sandy home by this summer was hatched in a fifth-grade classroom.

Mayor Matt Doherty's 10-year-old daughter, Hannah, is in the same class as Shaun Keefe, whose family has been staying with relatives a half-hour away after the October 2012 storm devastated their house.

"She said to me, 'You're the mayor. What are you going to do about it?'" the mayor told WCBS 880's Sean Adams.

Belmar Mayor's Daughter Spurred Initiative To Bring Home Sandy-Displaced Families

"I thought, 'You know what? You're right. I am going to do something about it," Doherty said.

Belmar is now looking to raise $200,000 to get the last two families home.

"There's no more federal money. There's no more state money," Doherty said. "There's no rich uncle that's going to come and save the day."

The water lifted and twisted the Keefes' home on 14th Avenue.

"It was about 3 feet in the house, and by the time we got outside, the two little ones were rescued by buoy," said Teresa Keefe, a mother of three. "And my mother, myself and (daughter) Shayla were walked out, and it was up to our necks."

More than two years later, the Keefes' house has a new foundation, and the first floor is framed. But that's it -- aid and insurance fell short. The mortgage company is holding up what's left in the bank.

The family is in limbo.

"I'm numb,"Teresa Keefe said.

She said her children -- ages 9, 10 and 14 -- are suffering.

"They can't play with their friends after school," Keefe said. "They can't do anything because I'm constantly running around. There's not even family time for us to hang out because I'm constantly running the roads.

"There's anger," she said of her kids. "There's frustration. Their schoolwork went down. Just their whole air about them."

Teresa Keefe reminds her children that while they did lose everything, they still have each other.

"We're OK," she said. "Our house didn't make it, but we all did. We all survived."

Belmar partnered with the St. Vincent De Paul Society of St. Rose, a Catholic church in town, and set up a bank account to receive tax-deductible donations. They can be made online through PayPal by going to www.belmar.com, or by sending checks made out to "Home by Summer" to: Borough of Belmar, Attn: Home by Summer, P.O. Box A, Belmar, N.J. 07719.

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