Elliot Dee and Mary Beth Lapham spoke to The Rotary Club of Westfield last week about the three-year Capital Campaign for St. Joseph Social Services in Elizabeth. The Rotary Club of Westfield has supported St. Joseph for decades, but most recently by making sandwiches and bringing them to the center every Wednesday for the past 94 weeks through the Covid-19 pandemic. The center provides a wide range of social services to the poor and homeless in Union County.
Ms. Dee and Ms. Lapham explained to the club that the center has been overwhelmed by the needs of the community, and the physical space is no longer meeting their needs for efficiency. Following a recent feasibility study, new plans have been drawn for an expansion project.
Currently St Josephs runs a Soup Kitchen on Saturdays which feeds 200 people each week; provides 400 bags of food every week which feed a family of four for six days; has a program with the Community Food Bank of NJ which feeds 150 households; and runs a farmers’ market. Each year the center provides 250,000 meals, and never missed a day during the Covid shutdown.
In addition to food, St. Josephs provides clothing, home goods, diapers, and school supplies to those in need. They also provide support services including mental health counseling, case management, Job training, computer skills and summer camp for kids. The center accomplishes all of this with only four full time and 10 part time employees.
The Capital Campaign will raise funds for a bigger food pantry; space for clothing and home goods; renovation of the existing buildings; installing private counseling areas, and reconfiguring and repaving of the parking lot. The cost for the campaign is projected to be $1.8 million, and is expected to take three years for the construction to be complete.
The center shares space with its sister organization, the Elizabeth Coalition to House the Homeless. The coalition's goal is to help people who have recently become homeless to get back into society as a functioning person with a job and being able to support themselves. They house a family for a short while, assist in substance abuse recovery, provide mental health counseling, job counseling, computer skills workshops, allow them to save up the deposit on an apartment, and eventually move them out. and bring the next family in. The Rotary Club of Westfield helped the coalition construct an additional two-family house in 2007, so they now have four two family houses- housing eight families.
Westfielders have a close relationship with Elizabeth. Nearly 2,000 Westfield residents have been to St Joseph as volunteers last year, including Rotarians, parishioners from Holy Trinity and St. Helen’s, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and the Westfield High School Boys Hockey Team.