Creating Lasting Solutions to Hunger, Homelessness and Poverty

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Civic Warriors:
Innovative, dynamic, gritty, determined warrior.

Hosts:
This podcast is about the innovators, the leaders on the front lines of adversity, the all around good people doing good deeds. They are the civic warriors of the world. Withum’s guests are the leaders in the nonprofit industry affecting change. They try, they fail, they overcome. Through their stories we can join forces to become civic warriors.

Brad:
Hey warriors. On today’s episode of Civic Warriors podcast, we talk with Nancy Rudgers of Nourish.NJ. Nourish.NJ, previously known as the Community Soup Kitchen and Outreach Center is a nonprofit organization creating lasting solutions to hunger, homelessness, and poverty by offering food, housing services, work readiness programs and medical, social and education services 365 days a year. We talked with Nancy today about operating before and after the COVID- 19 pandemic and how they shifted operations and implemented innovative solutions to continue to nourish those in need. Let’s welcome Nancy to the show. So Nancy, welcome to a welcome to our Civic Warriors podcast. We appreciate you, uh, appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today.

Nancy:
Well, thank you, Brad and Ashley for having me on. I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you and so will the folks that are interested in nonprofits.

Brad:
Awesome. So, uh, so just for everybody’s knowledge, uh, you know, Nancy works over at, uh, Nourish.NJ, which is formerly known as the, Community Soup Kitchen and Outreach Center, uh, which is a super cool not-for-profit organization in the Morris County area?

Nancy:
We’re located in Morristown, but we handle people throughout Moriss County.

Brad:
Awesome.

Nancy:
So anybody’s welcome.

Brad:
So, um, yeah, so thanks for joining us. So, um, I guess Nancy, why don’t you, why don’t you tell us a little bit about, uh, what Nourish.NJ does? I think it would be great for everyone to get a little background on a, on what you’re about.

Nancy:
Sounds great. Thank you. Sure. Well, we did start out as the community soup, kitchen and outreach center back in 1984 serving soup and sandwiches to anyone who needed food. And then, um, over the years, we’ve expanded to an organization that provides outreach services as well. So today, given that we help people with food insecurity, homelessness and poverty issues, we thought that it was time to change our name. And so what we did was back in October of 2019, we decided that it’s time for everyone to realize that we’re more than just a soup kitchen. And we named ourselves Nourish.NJ. Um, but what we are as an organization, like I said, that anyone, um, who is in need of food or outreach services and food insecurity, is something that people don’t really stand from the perspective, that they think that just having enough money to put food on the table is sufficient, but that’s not really it. Healthy eating is what we are all about. And, um, for the most part people that are living paycheck to paycheck, they don’t have the money to afford healthy food for their families for themselves. So they tend to buy low cost offensive items so that they can feed their, their family, but unfortunately that results and healthcare issues, as we all know, and obesity, high blood pressure, things of that sort. So what we do is we make sure that we can provide healthy food to people. We are, we provide breakfast and lunch every day, 365 days a year. And then we offer what we call free farmer’s markets and the free farmer’s markets is where we actually go out and rescue food from supermarkets, uh, food stores. In the summertime, we actually have access to gardens and, um, uh, the orchards and things like that. And they give us all this food, fruits, vegetables, things of that sort, and we redistribut it for free. So, um, that’s like our real focus making sure that we rescue and obtain and then redistribute free, healthy food to whoever needs it. So of course, all of our programs, um, a pre-COVID, we are socially distancing, but that hasn’t stop us because we know that the people that we serve under pre-COVID scenario are even more in need of our help with COVID. So we did shift our, um, programs to make it socially distant and safe for the staff, uh, and for the people that we’re helping. So right now, for example, we still serve daily meals, but we’re doing a takeout and we serve breakfast and lunch, sort of a brunch package. And we give those out every day, we’re still probably serving 125 of those a day. We are doing bagged groceries right now for the senior citizens that are self isolating, because they’re too dangerous for them to go out. Okay. And we’re delivering household items, canned foods, medicines if they need that, uh, well to their doorstep. Okay. And we worked with a couple of senior citizen housing complex is under the Morristown housing authority. So through that, you know, we have a relationship that we started six months ago and we bring it right to the housing authority and then the guests come down, the senior citizens come down, they help themselves. Um, but we’re also bringing the grocery bags, to people that are sheltering in motels and things for, because they might be quarantine cause they do have, COVID leaving things on there, front door. And we still use our outreach program or our outreach program is something that, um, is very instrumental for our guests, food insecurity and, and homelessness are just symptoms of other problems that they have. So our outreach staff, which normally meets face to face one on one with our guests who, uh, help them with whatever they need help with, is now doing it remotely. And they are, um, doing wellness check in’s by phone, they’re doing mental health counseling by phone. Uh, and then again, they’re, they’re needing access to prescriptions and things like that. We’re helping them get all that. So we, we haven’t stopped what we’re doing at all. Still we’re still out there doing it. We’ve just had to make sure that we could alternate our patterns or suspend like suspend our normal activities, if you will, and pivoted to a way that was acceptable during this crisis that we’re dealing with.

Brad:
Yeah. And that’s, I think a lot of organizations are trying to try to navigate that and figure out, you know, how do you transition from, uh, you know, being a, an in person, uh, serving organization. Right. I think, I think historically, uh, much of your services and much of the, the food you distribute and, and really the, the outreach center was all in in-person activity. Right. So it wasn’t a, it wasn’t, it wasn’t virtual probably at all prior to this. Correct.

Nancy:
Absolutely. I mean, that’s part of, I mean, we’re more of a, our organization is set up, yes, come to us, we help you. But we’ve created a community and a social environment right. In our dining room. So the people that come there, I mean, this is, some of them are lonely and alone. They don’t have family. And they’ve, they’ve learned that the people that they’ve met in our organization as staff, as well as the people that come in to have a meal are now part of their family. They’re now part of their social network. So it’s a social, it’s a social environment and that’s the piece that’s missing for a lot of people, which of course kind of translated to more stress and missile anxiety, and then increases our need on the outreach side. I didn’t really touch too much on the different programs that the outreach does, but, uh, I’ll throw it out there now. With our outreach program, we’ve been helping people find housing. We’ve been helping people find jobs and our mental health program that I’ve talked about a little bit here and there probably the most prevalent one right now, because all the people that are dealing with the issues that they have in their personal life, somewhere else, it’s the result of some trauma and that’s trauma and some PTSD situations causes them not to be able to hold down a job, causes them, um, maybe not to be able to be rational and living in maintaining their household living accommodations. So we advocate for them and we mediate with them so that we can kind be their hand holder if you will, and make sure that we can intervene whenever it’s necessary. If it means, you know, talking to them down off the ledge, if you will, so that they can handle the situation at hand, because a small thing that we might consider an easy situation to think about and resolve, it could be traumatic for them because they just have no basis for stability, or um, comfort level, if you will.

Brad:
Yeah. And I think that’s super relevant for, I think a lot of people to know, um, before this call, um, you know, we, we obviously got introduced to you through Mike Kulik. Who’s a partner here at with them. Mmm. And, and I think Mike said the same thing I asked him. I said, you know, if you wanted the world to know something about nourish New Jersey, what would it be? And he said, yeah, his comment was it’s, we’re so much more than a soup kitchen. And we’re so much more than providing food. You know, we provide the entire suite to help people get, you know, either get back on their feet or maintain a healthy lifestyle or, uh, you know, transition, um, to be a better person. And I think, you know, I appreciate you sharing your, your, um, comments on what you are doing and how you’re doing that. And I know myself, I serve in an organization, uh, called coming home where, um, you know, my executive director that I worked with, uh, over there, she always invites in me that, you know, it’s more than just, you know, putting someone into a house. If you’re homeless, it’s more than just saying here’s the keys to a house because there’s a, there is a, you know, first and foremost, there’s an accessibility component and you have to find the housing. There’s a sustainability component, you have to have, you have to be able to maintain a job to pay for the housing, not just being subsidized. Um, and then there’s an affordability component. You need to be able to make enough enough money, whether it’s through subsidy or through working, just to maintain that lifestyle. And then the last thing in all of that is, you know, with COVID-19 the thing I learned having two young kids, is that your anxiety level, just like every day, it goes like this, because not only are you trying to do your job differently than you’ve ever done it before, so you’re venturing into this new skill, but you’re also, you know, sometimes kids don’t, you know, kids at that age don’t fully grasp or understand what’s going on. And, and you can’t, you know, you’ve probably heard this before, but you can’t rationalize with a three year old. You can tell them, but you know, it doesn’t go so far. There’s a, there’s always a why daddy, why the, why, why?

Nancy:
You’ve said it all in a nutshell. That’s exactly correct.

Brad:
So, you know, I guess I’m, you know, maybe, uh, one of the things I think you mentioned to us, um, you know, in chatting with you, um, you know, obviously one organization probably can’t do everything right. And so you can, and you do, but do you partner with any other agencies to kind of help, uh, with that suite of services you provide or to help, um, you know, individuals thrive? Do you, do you partner with any other agencies or organizations?

Nancy:
Yeah. So, we do. First of all, let me say we do partner with Morristown Memorial Hospital. The community health division. And we work very closely with them. They help us with all of our homeless people. They help us medical care for everyone who doesn’t have health insurance. They, and they communicate back and forth. Cause like I said, a lot of times we’re there emergency contact for some of our folks. So we have a direct line with that division of Morristown Memorial Hospital. And we, um, each client that goes there is getting personalized health and we’re kind of, we monitor them and we make sure that they’re following the medical protocol. That’s being given to them if that’s necessary. So that’s a big partner of ours and they financially support us as well. We also work with the Zufall’s Health Clinic. And once a month, the mobile van, if you will, comes to our organization and does WellCare checkup, diabetes testing, they provide whether you have insurance or not, a physical medical health care. And they track, they have some of our, our guests as clients. So each month when they are coming, they’re checking the records and keeping them up to, um, making sure they’re adhering to whatever protocol they need to be following. Uh, we also work with the Morristown, um, Housing Authority and that’s the area where three, ah, the low income senior housing facilities that are under the Morristown Housing Authority are the ones that we’re working with. And we’re working with over 200, the people that live in those apartments, providing them with healthy food and we’re delivering it to them. Uh, many of them have diabetes, high blood pressure, they’re on a fixed income, so they can’t really afford healthy food. So those are things three, um, particular senior housing complexes that we are working with to provide healthy food with every week. And we’re doing that now during COVID, we’re delivering grocery bags for them right now. We partner with other organizations like The Hispanic Community of New Jersey, we work with JBWS. Mmm. We work with like a whole slew of them.

Brad:
I’m sure you work with a lot.

Nancy:
We have a lot of corporations. And you know, what the people, the employees within the organization like Withum is one of them where your employees for Keith and you donate your time to us. You guys have done that. And we’ve worked with other corporations who send their employees into the dining room to help with that our employment program. So there’ll be people volunteering in the dining room that have skills, preparing resumes, doing mock interviews, helping with, uh, finding online job applications. So we rely on over 3,000 volunteers in our organization to help make this organization run efficiently and effectively. We keep a very lean staff for that reason. We need our volunteers and our volunteers come in, all ranges, you know, the volunteers help prepare the meal, serve the meal, but they also provide their expertise and skills in the dining room and can work one on one with our, our guests.

Brad:
Yeah. I mean, 3000 volunteers is a lot of volunteers.

Ashley:
That’s a lot volunteers.

Brad:
Yeah. How do you manage, do you have like a volunteer program or do you have a, uh, like a system in place for managing volunteers? I know that’s we do, we do work with a lot of organizations that are heavy, heavily volunteer, uh, driven. And, and I think we find that, uh, administratively, it becomes a little bit of a, you know, administratively and somewhat legally, it comes up a little bit of a challenge to manage, but how do you, how do you go about that in anything we can learn from, from what you’re doing?

Nancy:
Well, we do, we do ask all of our volunteers to attend a brief 30 minute orientation. And this way we can give them think we operate under the board of health guidelines as well. So, and we are, safe serve in the kitchen and we want to make sure that our people that are working to serve the food, everyone kind of goes by the guidelines and the board of health 30 minutes briefing that we do allows us to go through the guidelines of what you need to know how you volunteer and you know, the routine so that people aren’t walking in sort of uneasy that they don’t know what they’re going to be doing. We want you to come in comfortable. We want you to come in happy. Um, yeah, we have, uh, we have someone who handles the two people actually that handle volunteers 100% of their time because it is a big job, but that is what we need to keep our overhead down is the volunteers and the volunteers do everything. I mean, they help us unload donations that are coming in. They help us restock pantry our pantry. They help us prepare the food, serve the food, clean up and again, if they have talents, we have other things, things that we do in the dining room, we have like a music therapy and an art program. So if their talent in music and art, they can come and join us with that, and they like to work with the guests. That’s the other thing they do enjoy it. Our volunteers, we’re excited to be able to interact. And our guests love that too.

Brad:
Yeah. I can only imagine that. That’s that’s uh, that’s cool. And yeah, I’ve heard, I mean we, yeah. A couple of clients I work with, they have, they have the, you know, the position of volunteer manager. You know.

Nancy:
That’s not an easy job.

Brad:
No, no, no, no. And I’m sure there’s paperwork involved and I’m sure, you know, just getting everyone scheduled and organized and yeah, there’s a lot that goes into it. You know, a lot of corporations want to donate their time, time and effort, you know, organizations like us, you know, we love doing it. And I, and I know it actually, like when I approach organizations, sometimes it’s stressful to organizations that we come and volunteer for them. I think, I think we respect and understand that and try to, you know, I know the one, a couple of the organizations that we, uh, uh, we do some bigger volunteer activities for know, we kind of are like, okay, instead of us telling you when we can come, why don’t you tell us when you need us most? And that’s when we’ll be there. And I think that’s one of, that’s one of the hardest things to understand. Cause I think a lot of corporations are, Hey, you know, we have a volunteer and with them does it too. We have our Withum Week of Caring and, and that’s, that’s around Thanksgiving time for obvious reasons. And, but sometimes organizations we work with, they’re like, yeah, we don’t need you around Thanksgiving time. We need you in the summer. Like we have some trees in the back. Can you cut those down for us?

Nancy:
Well, Withum does come in November too to help us in our dining room and we love that, but I love it because you guys are so energetic and enthusiastic and we need that and we want that. And you guys do whatever is needed to be done. You’re you’re not picky.

Brad:
Okay. Yeah. I have one, I have one that we monitor for every year that, um, they, uh, they manage the trails in New Jersey up in, uh, uh, up North in Mahwah. And, uh, I’ve had to like cut, cut out like sticker bushes. Like one year, one year we were moving logs and like clear and trail and it’s so much fun. You know, we, we get, you know, we get like 10 people, everyone loves going there. Um, but we, you know, once again, we pivot to what the organization needs. And I think anyone that, you know, under, you know, works with nonprofits just needs to understand that a lot of it is about what the nonprofit needs, not about, not about just, you know, doing something. And I think, uh, you know, it’s cool that you have a volunteer program. It’s cool that you have someone that manages it and that you are so volunteer driven because, um, you know, that allows you to provide the services you provide is with those volunteers. Um, we can’t do, you know, mutually inclusive relationship where you can’t do your services, you know, you could never afford all the people that you need to do everything that you do. Mmm. Yeah. In a, in a nonprofit environment, especially in a post-COVID environment when contributions become uncertain right now.

Nancy:
No, I was just going to say that is so true because we’ve, we set up team building events for our corporations to come and volunteer, and usually there’s a donation involved and now we’re losing that little piece of it, financial support that we used to have historically with not having corporations come in and volunteer.

Brad:
Okay. Yeah. And, and it’s the one thing I wanted to take a step back and it’s, it’s somewhat related to that. And it’s, you know, how, how did you make the transition from, you know, being in person to being, you know, going virtual and, you know, abiding by the state social distancing orders. And for those that don’t know we’re in the state of New Jersey, I said Morris County right up front but I think there are, we do have some, uh, some folks that listen, uh, that are non state of New Jersey. So this is in the state of New Jersey and obviously New Jersey is under a stay home order right now, um, for a period of time that I’m not a hundred percent sure about. And, so how did you make, you know, how did that just talk us a little bit about how you made the transition, right. I mean, I imagine there’s a lot of individuals at your organization that, that, you know, you had a meeting of the minds of sorts, but can you walk us through a little bit, how you transitioned? Like what did that process look like to make that happen?

Nancy:
So, absolutely. So we have been opened 300, we’re open 365 days a year. And for 36 years, we’ve never missed a day of closing our doors through snow storms, hurricanes. We are open. We’ve never closed.

Brad:
No matter what.

Nancy:
No matter what. So March 13th was a Friday and we had yup. Uh, an emergency staff meeting and all hands on deck and we discussed what we were going to do. And basically we were not, we wanted to make sure that we were protecting everyone, volunteers, guests, and staff. So we pivoted into takeout right away. We discussed this on Friday and we implemented it. Okay. Saturday. So basically we said, okay, we’re not, we’re going to limit the number of people working in the dining room when the kitchen, which is like three staff members only, and people will come in and we will be making bag meals and we will be handing them out. We set up, we opened the front doors, create a table, thanks between us and the guests. And we had one, one staff member, uh, at that time or handing out the meals and then two people in and the dining room making the food, if you will, and we’re from that day till now we’re still giving out 125 brunch bags a day. Then we also discussed well hat’s just not enough. Because a lot of times we always have take home food available in the dining room for guests to take home, uh, to prepare in their home. So we decided that, okay, we also were going to make grocery bags. So because what we want is we don’t want really, to have people coming to us. If we can give them enough groceries to stay home for several days, it’s safer for them than to be out and about. So the combination of the two plan was send people home with this as much food as we can provide them with, because if they can sell quarantine during this time pandemic, uh, what we found was that we’re still getting there, the daily people coming in, and those are the people that are more or less homeless or in shelters. So, uh, and the folks that are, that we are giving the grocery bags to her family of low income, and they are getting meals for a family of four, roughly that would last two to three days. And, and you know what, like I said, we’re a small staff, but we pivot fast. And we, we know our track record is to be there for our guests. And we know if we don’t open our doors and give them what they need, they’re not getting it. So there was, there was no, there was no, Mmm. There was no questions asked by the staff. I mean, basically we knew what we had to do and we did it and we’ve been doing it since March 14th, is when it started and it’s worked out well, we have three people a day coming in and we rotate the staff. Initially, when we were doing this, we wanted to make sure no one was sick. So we were kind of staggering the staff with the thought process is god forbid, any of us are sick we didn’t want to wipe out our staff. But thankfully, nobody on our staff is sick or has been.

Ashley:
That’s great. That’s wonderful. So you chose a plan right from the get go that you could probably use to sustain hopefully the whole way through. And hopefully the whole way through is, short term.

Nancy:
Our biggest problem is having the money to buy all the food, because we’re buying all this food, we’re not taking donations. That was the other thing. We stopped taking donations again from a safety standpoint. So we had to change and purchase food. The problem we were also incurring was that a lot these suppliers didn’t even have, I enough food to give to all the different areas. We do work with the Community Food Bank of New Jersey. So they have been very supportive during the pandemic. And we probably pick up, I do, I’m sure we pick up once a month. It gives me once a week from them. So that helps us with like the non perishable goods. But now we’ve got to transition a little bit more because like I said earlier, not perishable foods, canned goods are not what we really want to give people, but that’s what we did for a month thinking this is a short term issue. And now that we see it as longterm, we’re going to implement in the next couple of weeks, um, working with our supermarket chains again, to get the fresh fruits and vegetables so that we can now give out more healthier foods. And with the warmer weather coming and people with their personal gardens, we’re asking anyone who has gardens, if they want to donate some of their fresh stuff, we’ll take their fresh fruits and vegetables and we’ll distribute it.

Ashley:
Wow. So how are you collecting those fruits and veggies? Is there a drop off?

Nancy:
So, uh, yeah, two ways, the ones that we’re getting from the restaurant ones that we’re getting from supermarket chains, our then goes out every day and picks up from the supermarket chain and everyone’s masked and gloved. And there’s usually containers already sitting there waiting for us. For donations that are coming in now through individuals, we set it up on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that they can drop off between 10 and one and we have bins outside, but people can just leave them there, donations outside, tell us that you’re coming, so we know to go outside and check, and then we bring it in.

Ashley:
Awesome.

Brad:
How do you, um, you know, as an organization, obviously you, um, promote, uh, you know, healthy, healthy eating, um, and you know, serving meals. Do you have a nutritionist or do you, how do you, um, have you come up with the, the choices for, uh, you know, what what’s being served?

Nancy:
So last year, when we transitioned into this healthy food program, we worked with a couple of nutritionists who volunteered their time with our kitchen coordinator and our director of operations who does the meal plan. And together they came up with items that were, that could replace the things that people were like use. Like we don’t use white rights anymore. We use Brown rice, we use fresh vegetables. We now fresh meat. We don’t know, you know, the whole frozen food, meat products and processed meat. We don’t use any of that. We buy fresh chicken if I have fresh vegetables. Uh, and yes, we did work with a nutritionalist. She volunteered to help us with the program.

Brad:
Oh, that’s so cool. Yeah. And I, yeah, it’s definitely, it’s funny. I went to, for the first time in my life, we went through, um, this like health assessment where they kind of looked at your longevity. It was like a longevity study to see. And at the end, you know, the whole thing with it is they say, they’re going to tell you how long you’re going to live. But, but as part of that, I, I never would have gone –

Nancy:
I don’t know if I want to know that.

Brad:
Oh, no, it’s kind of scary. Yeah. It’s, it’s crazy what they tell you too. Cause it’s, they, they run all these tests that you never would have run. And so there’s a lot of like random things. Like, I dunno, like I find out, I found that I have like a low bone density and like, I have, like, I have like a spine of like a 90 year old and it’s like, all right, cool. Like what do I do about that? Yeah. And it’s very odd. And, um, but it, but it’s so telling them when you hear these things, like, because they ran, they run like a bone density test. Like when would you ever get a bone density test done? And, um, they did that. But anyway, as part of this, they, you know, they kind of go through all this nutritional stuff. And I, once again, I would never go to a nutritionist, but when I talked with the nutritionist, I’m like, like they gave me literally like 5 to 10 tips, like, Hey, here’s a sheet of paper consider doing these couple of things. And I can tell you, like, it makes all the world of difference. Just having someone say, hey, eat this, not that, do this, not that. And those small changes, like make a world of difference, like incorporating more almond butter in your diet or, you know, whatever the random, uh, secret or trick is. But, um, you know, food has so much impact on our mood and has so much impact on our, on our wellbeing, both mentally and physically that, um, I, I think a lot of people need to need to really consider that and, and, and understand like the, the value of the service and of your organization, what you’re doing for the community. Because, uh, as you said in the beginning, you know, um, and I forget the exact words, but it was something along the lines of, you know food, food is healthcare. Food is, you know, food is the, you know, one of the, one of the main sources of, of wellbeing. Uh, and, and most, most, you know, individuals don’t necessarily eat healthy, especially, um, you know, if you don’t have access to a healthy food or you can’t afford healthy food, which as everybody knows healthy food is typically more expensive than unhealthy food. You know, I can go buy a box of Mac and cheese pretty cheap, but, uh, if I want to go make a healthy meal, it may cost me three to four times that to make that healthy meal. So, you know, we really commend you on, on kind of not only serving food, but, but having the mindset that it’s more, it’s more about us helping that individual than us putting a meal on a table. And I think that’s, uh, of my big takeaways of just understanding more about what you’re doing. And I think that’s, that’s great.

Nancy:
And we are, that’s our approach. We have this holistic approach to, to what we’re doing. And, you know, if, if I needed to, to break it down into four groups food is our entryway into helping people, and from there, we find out what is that they need? Do they need a place to live? Do we need to help them find a place to live? Do we need to help them get a job? Okay. All of that kind of intertwines with each other. And then the end result is what is their medical condition? What is their health like, are you encompassing all this together? And a lot of times people will get help a single area, not really helping them become self sufficient. And we always think we want to be able to provide tools for people that are becoming self sufficient and one other point that I, I probably should make that I didn’t is that a lot of the people that were helping fall through the cracks of our system. They are the hard to help them. People that don’t get can access services, uh, through traditional ways. They don’t, they don’t meet criteria. They don’t have, you know, a lot of our organizations that are out there require you to fill out applications form. Number one, that’s very intimidating for some of our guests. Uh, number two, we don’t have any requirements to get our services, everything we do, food, housing, employment, medical free. Yeah. No questions asked. And then we help everyone regardless of their religious background, ethnic background, their, um, their personal financial situation. And we know that when you’re coming to us, you are you’re in need. We don’t have to worry about filling out an application that you qualify. And that’s brings me to the other thing is that we’re a hundred percent self-funded,

Brad:
that’s what I was going to say. It’s the government funding that actually creates a lot of that, um, administration, because a lot of the funding is dependent upon circumstances and you’re, you’re correct there with government funding. There’s, there’s thresholds there scales, there’s a whole slew of different eligibility criteria that us as auditors ended up auditing on, on conversations like that. We come across it a lot, but, um, you know, there’s income levels you have to meet. And what’s interesting is that a lot of those sometimes are very, very low bars to receive a government subsidy. And there are so many people that are in that working two jobs, kids, families, okay. Don’t meet those criteria because they’re, they’re doing everything that, that they do, which is incredible. Um, but they don’t necessarily meet those. You know, I always said, I want, if I created a charity because of, you know, having kids now, if I created a charity, it would be helping, helping single working moms, because I don’t know how you do it. I honestly don’t know how that, how you make that happen. And, and, you know, because they’re working because, you know, they may not get that. So, um, why don’t you talk about, you know, I think it’s, it’s good lead in, it’s definitely something, um, I kind of totally cut you off. Government funding does, does create some of that and you’re not government funded. So you, you do have the ability to offer, uh, offer a more, uh, a less intimidating in a more, uh, open, uh, a service.

Nancy:
That’s exactly right. Um, we, we choose not to accept government funding because we don’t want to turn anyone away and we want to create a barrier stigma, free environment for people, but they are, they feel comfortable coming and asking for help because people in need don’t. Okay. Know, does it humble humbleness to having to ask for help? So if we create a friendly, warm environment, which we’ve always done, you’ve come in, there’s a smile greeting you at the door. How, how are you? You know, what, what can we do for you today? How about a cup of coffee? We sit down with our guests, we get to know them. And then over time we build this relationship where they feel comfortable coming to us for help. And you can’t do that if you’re getting government funding, because you do have restrictions, you do have reporting requirements and it’s taking us would be taking us away from helping the people that need our help. And like, again, we’re providing an environment where they can just come in and most of our clients come through word of mouth because they know that we’re going to help them regardless of their situation. So we do rely on individuals donating money to us. We rely on schools. We have some supporting congregations and we also look for private foundations. I do grant writing. So I will apply for private money. And we look at corporations. So anyone in any amount financial support is it’s important for us to sustain our programs because they are right. And, um, I mean, the thing is, in addition to just buying foods, if we’re helping someone find a house, a home I should say, or an apartment, they don’t have the savings to put a security deposit down and get a place to live. So we might need to help them with that. We may need to give them seed money to do that. People looking for jobs probably don’t have interview clothes. Part of our work program is to be able to get them a haircut and a suit or a dress that they can go on their interview and feel comfortable about themselves, give themselves some self esteem, the confidence. So that, that when they’re on that interview, yeah. They’ll get that job. Um, so there’s a lot of seed money that goes into getting people back on their feet and we’re, we’re okay with that. And we have donors that are totally on board with supporting that. So, um, that’s where all of our money goes going into the programs to get people, uh, back on their feet. And it all starts with them coming in for a meal.

Brad:
Yeah.

Ashley:
That’s wonderful.

Brad:
So how do you, um, you know, talking a little bit, I mean, I imagine I what’s a, you know, as you mentioned, um, you know, you’re purchasing, you’re purchasing the food, you’re, you’re obviously, um, providing funds for certain services or, you know, purchasing maybe clothes or haircut. Um, how are you, how are you transitioning your fundraising efforts right now? Um, just given that, you know, obviously times are changing and everybody’s a little bit uncertain about what’s happening to, uh, public contributions in the world. How are you thinking about it and how are you kind of a protein, the next phase of a we’ll call it fundraising?

Nancy:
Oh, we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, which is, you know, um, working with stewardship with our existing donors, because they are, they’ve been a basis and a foundation for us, but 36 years, but we’ve, we’ve increased our marketing on social media, which was something we were a little lacking then in the past. So now we’re more out there, um, on Facebook and Instagram, like all the other organizations are we, um, during COVID we actually put in, we put out a emergency fund relief campaign, uh, through letters and through social media. So we were hoping that people will either send us a check or go on our website, like www.nourishnj.org and make a donation online through our website. And then again, searching out for some more grant opportunities because there is some COVID funding out there. One of the things I was trying to, to do recently just reconnect with my corporate teams that have been sponsoring the day, uh, over the years and with the sponsor of the day program, there was a financial donation. And like I mentioned earlier where we don’t have that right now. So I was hoping to look for ways to get companies to reengage with that. Like maybe they have some corporate citizenship teamwork going on, or certainly special programs for COVID. And that’s kind of one of the things that I’m hoping I can reconnect with them and look for ways that the individual employees on their own could come up with fundraising ideas. We have a couple of people that are doing something on their own. I have a group that, uh, raising a garden and they’re going to sell their flowers and herbs from their garden and all proceeds will come to us. So people are getting creative, we have volunteers making masks for our guests. Um, so there’s financial and then there’s time and services. So, um, but we’re always looking for ways to keep it the okay programs going.

Brad:
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it seems like you’re doing that, which is, which is a good, good to hear and, and definitely, um, you know I think we’re all, I think we’re all kind of challenged by what do we do next? You know, what’s the next move I think about it every day is, you know, what’s the, what’s the next thing that I should be thinking about. What’s the next thing that I should be doing. Um, yeah. So from your perspective, I guess what, okay. Aye. I can never find a better way to ask this, but you know, like, like what keeps you up at night, Nourish. NJ? Like what, what are the things that, you know, you know, you’re, you’re either challenged with, or, you know, we talked about a few of them, but, but what are the things that, you know, you would say, man, I really need this help from the public, you know? What would that be? Other than, Hey, here’s a million dollar check. That would be nice. Wouldn’t it?

Nancy:
That would be nice. You know right now, what I think about is the aftermath of COVID-19 honestly. Um, we have done such a great job prior, we housed 87 homeless people, and we got 170 people jobs. Those folks, plus many, many, many more are going to be coming to our door now, after this is over, because they, they have lost their jobs. They have had their wages cut. So I feel like the next 24 months, is going to be very, very, challenging for us as an organization, see a significant increase poverty and homelessness. People are gonna be, I mean, this whole, um, rent, the words that they’re using now, where you don’t have to pay your rent for a little while?

Brad:
Holiday.

Nancy:
We’re going to see a lot of evictions. I mean, we’re going to see a lot of company people coming to us saying, you know, I can’t pay this back rent. What do we do?

Brad:
Yeah.

Nancy:
So the question is, is, do you really want people to lose their homes over a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars? If we’ve got multiple people. For us, it’s very hard. Once you become homeless, you get back into it. Okay. An apartment complex. So we want to make sure that we have the financial resources and it is all about finance. I’m sorry to say, to keep these people housed if they’re unemployed and get them back on track to be, um, to be able to get a job, because I think that the numbers are going to be astonishing. Yeah. Yeah. I really do.

Brad:
Yeah. I think that’s, that’s definitely a lot, a lot of, a lot of our concern too, is that, um, it’s not necessarily right now. I think everyone’s somewhat managing right now. It’s, it’s what happens after the fact, you know, a lot of businesses that have always been open that have been, uh, very active in communities that need donations that, uh, supported, you know, different people and individuals. I mean, some of those businesses may not be around after this because of everything going on. Ya know. If you can’t open your, you know, a lot of restaurants that can’t open their doors for two months, I mean, that has it, that has a detrimental effect on, on so many levels. Um, ya know. I think about all the, I think about the one thing that I keep thinking about is like all the real estate out there right now, that’s a, that’s a, a landlord or a real estate, you know, commercial real estate. Um, there’s going to be some, some substantial changes to how, uh, we even go about commercial real estate. Like think about all the department stores, you know, I mean, my thought is, a lot of that may ultimately end up being converted to housing because, you know, the housing is, is where there’s a shortage and there’s just this plethora of the storefronts were when something like this happens, you know, a lot of people, um, realize that, you know, or they may be scared to go to storefronts. You know, I mean, there may be this psychological component. What I’m trying to say is there’s this psychological component, but I think a lot of us can’t predict and, uh, it’s going to be a real, a real eyeopener to figure out how we pivot as a society and really how people, consumer behavior, how people are going to react and, you know, organizations like yours are going to continue to do the hard work. And, uh, you know, I know a lot more people are probably going to need your services. And I hate saying that, but, um, you know, so, so anyone that can support your organization, I think it’s a very worthwhile cause to support and, and really makes an impact on your community. I mean, even, you know, just looking at some of the statistics that you provided us before, even jumping on this call, um, you know, just, just looking at that and I think it’s good. Um, and it’s better you saying it to me cause I’m gonna, I’m totally gonna mean something, but, but how many people, you know, before pre-COVID, how many people a day did you serve?

Nancy:
Pre-COVID. We were serving between 200 and 250 meals a day. That’s breakfast and lunch. And through the farmer’s markets distribution, we were reaching 16 hundred people. And those are usually working poor families.

Brad:
1600?

Nancy:
1600 yep. So we, that markets are, are big, big, big program for us. Well, because we’re feeding, working poor families. Like you mentioned before, a lot of people are working two jobs at minimum wage to support their families, mothers, and fathers. And as a result, they don’t qualify for any kind of financial assistance or help, but they still can’t make ends meet. They’re paying their basic bills to keep their house, keep their job and what happened, transportation. So the food, there’s always the thing that is discretionary. If you can’t afford it, you don’t get it. So those markets have been really, really important piece of salvation for these families. We’re not only doing the working for families and the senior citizens that I mentioned, but we’re also actually delivering food to the Morristown, high school and the County College of Morris, because we’re, we learned last year that a lot of our students were dropping out cool because they needed, they couldn’t afford to stay in school and they needed to help support their family and get a job. Well, the other program that we’ve, uh, we instituted last year, just making sure that the students don’t have to choose between their education and feeding their family and helping support the household bills. So we are now providing food in a pantry fashion, very discreetly so that it’s not, there’s no stigma attached to it. And the students don’t have to feel we’re doing it with, with the help of the guidance department. So like, we kind of are doing it in the shadows and the guidance people department knows who needs what and how.

Brad:
Oh, sure.

Nancy:
So basically helping students stay in school so that they, and get an education and get a job and we can try to help them, right. The cycle of poverty and their future, because otherwise we’re, we’re putting a bandaid on it. If we can help kids get educated and get jobs, they’re going to, they’re going to result in the same situation that they grew up in. And that’s not what we wanted.

Brad:
Okay. Wow. That’s so impactful. That’s huge. And these are things that some people don’t even think about. And actually the fact that you’re saying it kind of goes on in the shadows is what is good for the students so that they don’t feel like you said, there’s stigma attached to it, but it also, shines light on what you guys are doing. So many things you’re doing that a lot of people might not even consider going about their normal daily lives. That other people are in these scenarios, where they need the support in those ways. And it all comes back to food. How that can be such a huge influence and a game changer.

Nancy:
It is a game changer for everyone. It really is. And, and you’re right. Most people don’t know about Nourish.NJ. And when they knew us, some people knew what those community soup kitchen really thought of us, just the kitchen. And I say that because that in and of it self has a stigma attached to it. So changing our name we felt was very impacted but also, still trying to bring awareness. Hey, everyone, that we’re more than we do so much more than feed people but food is the most important part of what we do. And that leads to what Brad was saying earlier, you know, your whole mental, physical outlook. and being changes, you’re eating healthy, and we take it for granted.

Brad:
Yeah. The dictionary term hangry is a real, it’s a real thing. I experience it all the time. And there’s also for all of you that know when you have young kids and they’re your kids. I heard this the other day that we, I gave my son a, it was my birthday a few weeks ago. And his birthday is actually, uh, coming up and we gave him cake. And apparently there’s something about blue icing. I didn’t know. But uh, someone told me that if you, you know, it might be an urban legend, but someone said that that blue icing makes kids go like completely bananas. And, uh, he ate this cake and within three minutes he turned into a monster, like an absolute, he was like throwing stuff across the room. He was running around screaming. And you know, you put that in, you put that into context of what, of what you’re doing and you realize that like, you know, why is that? Well, sugar kids shouldn’t have sugar and anyone that’s a parent out there, don’t give your kids sugar. Cause it’s, this is what happens. You know, they broke, throw their little action figures out the windows. And sometimes they go through the windows and you know, you go, you go through this, you go through this riggermerall and it’s, but you realize that it’s it’s, you know, it’s as simple as just, okay. I can give my kid cake with sugar or cake without sugar and it will make all the world of difference. It’s crazy to think about. Or you just say no more.

Nancy:
I don’t think you should get for his birthday, you better make sure he has a little icing or he’ll be jealous.

Brad:
Yeah. We, we decided, we just said, we’re just not going to blue icing. I am telling you someone, someone told me this urban legend that like blew up. It’s like the color blue icing. If there’s something in the dye that causes issues. I digress.

Nancy:
Yeah.

Brad:
Yeah. I mean now from our perspective, um, you know, any, uh, yeah, I think you told us, but I’ll just reiterate it. You know, if anyone is looking to make a donation to Nourish.NJ, I think you mentioned your website, uh, your website may be a good place to do that. Um, is that the best place you think to make, if someone wanted to make a donation to you?

Nancy:
Yes. The website has our R um, donation button right there that you click on very simple. And it also has our address. Someone would much rather send a check. They can send a check to, uh, NourishNJ 36 South Street, Morristown, New Jersey, or like I said, www.nourishnj.org. Uh, they could call us if they want to chat. I can tell them all about how, okay, cool and useful their donation would make an impact on people. Um, and, um, we need their help because not only will the need for services increase, but I’m sure a lot of people’s personal financial situations. Normally we’re able to give my change as a result of this pandemic. So, you know, in order for us stain ourselves, we’re going to need a lot of help from new people, as well as our existing donors, because we know that everyone’s going to be struggling financially. Even if you have it safety net, fortunately, to, to rely on, we’re all going to get hit pretty hard personally. And the people that we’re helping are already struggling. So that just means from, from nourish and Jay’s perspective, that they are just going to be in much more dire straits. They are. And we’ve started to see it. I mean, the numbers we had talked about, um, what we’re doing right now, a lot of what we’re seeing is again, people calling us and in search of how can I get yes, this and this? Mmm. It’s a, it’s going to be, and it’s going to be sad and it’s going to be busy. Yeah. Nourish.NJ has always promised to be there to help people. And this won’t change our commitment to being in the community and helping them with whatever they need from us. We make it happen. We do. Um, we always find a way we believe in serendipity. We know that whenever there’s a need, and if we’re in a difficult, but put it out there, it gets done. I’ve been there 13 years. To me, this is not a job. This is a passion of mine. Most of the folks that have been there work that are at Nourish.NJ have been there a long time. Our executive director has been there 20 some odd years plus. And this is, this is not a job for us. This, this is important mission that we all take to heart. Okay. I feel that everyone deserves to have access to healthy food, a place to live and a job and children, especially. So we want to make sure that we can get our, are kids on the right path so that they can break the cycle that they might’ve grown up in as a, of no fault of their own. Yes. The fact that the circumstances were not there, who on the services might not have been there for them too. I get it an opportunity to make it make a change and just, you know, to put a plug in for some of our guests, I mean, many of our guests right now, who are, they want to work and they want to give back and they’ve taken some of those frontline jobs right now during COVID just so that they can make some money and feel like they are part of it, of helping others. Okay.

Brad:
Well, we know, we know if someone needs to find good employment, they can also come to you guys. And I imagine you can make some good recommendations too. So I think that’s, you know, it’s not just about donating to nourish you and Jay, but it’s also, you know, if you have opportunities to help the people they’re serving, I think that’s also very valuable for people to hear and understand because yeah, that’s, that’s in the bigger picture of what you’re doing.

Nancy:
So that’s very true. We were doing, we’ve done that locally in Morristown. We have partnering with the restaurants, although again, now that that’s changed, but yeah, we are partnering with a lot of businesses that know us and know housing work with our guests and how we will be the mediator between the employer and the employee. And that’s something that I would like to mention. If there’s an opportunity for another company in need of an employment person, reach out to us, we match people’s skills and expertise to what the need is. We’re not going to just, you know, say here, John goes, take this job because we don’t want John to fail. And we don’t want our reputation with this company to be tarnished. Because our goal is to make sure we maintain relationships with businesses so that we can rotate people through different job opportunities. So we have been successful with that in the grocery business. In the, we have a lot of employees, we got jobs with a supermarket at restaurants. I’m sure a lot of those restaurant employees are going to be coming back to us. The restaurant starts shutting down. We’ll see. But, uh, we would definitely welcome the opportunity to partner with any company that is looking for help and is willing to work with us. We were willing to work them and, uh, kind of do a good match. We pre-screen our, our, our folks, we help them, you know, that’s what other training they need in addition to like, if there’s onsite training at the employment place. So that would be a great, great, uh, wait to collaborate with us.

Brad:
Yeah, no, I love that thought. And, and, uh, definitely, definitely something that we don’t always, always think about. Um, you know, we generally people may go traditional routes or put job postings online, but sometimes, sometimes you have to bring, you know, you have to go to the source, you know, it like with us, when we hire, you know, we go to the colleges, it’s not just putting a job posting, hey, we need a couple of kids. I mean, we’re, we’re so active with college campuses, just meeting, meeting the next generation, you know, of, of people getting into the profession in our, to our profession that, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s how you make it happen. So, you know, so it’s a great resource that you’re a staple in the community. And, uh, yeah, definitely. Uh, I learned a lot just, just by kind of listening to some of the things you’re doing and, and, uh, you know, you’re definitely doing a lot of good for a lot of people, uh, as, as you just mentioned. So, um, any, any, any closing thoughts for us, you know, we definitely talked about a lot, definitely had a great call. Loved talking with you. This is awesome. Uh, any closing thoughts for us?

Nancy:
I just want to thank you for this opportunity. Again, I hope that the folks that are listening have learned a lot about Nourish.NJ, and again, we have a wonderful website. We have wonderful staff members that are always okay. Excited to tell you a story. Um, I have lots of guest stories, but I can tell you happy endings and, uh, if there’s an opportunity to, to donate to our organization, we would greatly appreciate it. And thanks to you. I, I hopefully I’ve gotten my message across about our organization and the, and the wonderful things that our programs do to help people get back on their feet. And you know what one last thought. Many of us are only one trauma or one disaster away from being a guest at our door. And I’ll tell you that I’ve heard that story from people who have volunteers. That’s that’s for the grace of God. They’re not on our standing, standing on our food line. And, um, I agree with that. I think that many people don’t realize what one medical catastrophe, one accident in their, in their family situation could do to impact their personal, such, you know, their personal finances, their personal living conditions, and you would never dream that you might be on the other side of this organization getting our help but that’s what we, that’s what we have. [inaudible] we might see a lot more of in the future. So we all have to be grateful that we are where we are right now and hope that we can, um, share our treasures with people who need it.

Brad:
Totally agree. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that with us, Nancy, thanks for your time. Thanks for, uh, for, you know, bringing that up in a, in any, I definitely hope that everyone out there listening definitely has a good, a good sense of what Nourish.NJ does. If you don’t definitely check out their website, reach out to Nancy. Um, and, and really just a, you know, we appreciate, uh, kind of talking about all the good things you’re doing and kind of sharing some of the challenges you’re facing among among the times. And I think a lot of people will learn from this and you know we really, really appreciate it. So thanks. Thanks so much.

Brad:
Hey warriors, thanks for tuning in. On the next episode of Civic Warriors we talk with Graig Weiss and Sheria McRae from Foundation Academies, about the challenged faced by schools and how they are providing innovative solutions and quality education to the students in Trenton, New Jersey. Make sure to subscribe to Civic Warriors and thanks for all your support. Have a great day.