Besides being a gripping clash of New Jersey basketball rivals, Monday's game between Monmouth University and Seton Hall University at the Prudential Center in Newark has an off-court component to help keep thousands of men, women and children warm through the long winter.

Jersey Cares, the non-profit organization that threw all its resources into helping Superstorm Sandy victims here at the shore, will have volunteers there to collect the coat you no longer need. Staffers will be on site from 6:30 PM until 9 PM.

It's the 18th annual drive for the group, and its most ambitious yet. Jersey Cares plans to collect and distribute more than 60,000 gently-worn outer garments - which they say is 50-percent more than last year's goal. To date, they have repurposed more than 400,000 coats to Jerseyans of all ages.

In an effort to create the largest drive of its kind in its history, Jersey Cares is affiliating itself with the 2014 New York-New Jersey Super Bowl Host Committee, Wal-Mart and New York Cares. Churches, firehouses, businesses, schools and other brick-and-mortar sites are being recruited for what they're calling the Super Community Coat Drive.

Coats will be distributed to local non-profit organizations to service the needy in their respective areas.

More From 92.7 WOBM