Stories from Our Neighbors: Being a Bridge for Communities in Union County

The NJ Office of the Food Security Advocate (OFSA) values being in community with those who are working directly on the front lines to meet their neighbors' needs.

St. Joseph Social Service Center Food Program Director Corey Wu-Jung, MS, RDN did a speed round Q & A with OFSA to share the center's vision of upholding dignity and moving the community of Elizabeth, NJ and surrounding municipalities closer to true food security.

What community or communities do you serve??

We serve mostly community members from the City of Elizabeth, but we don’t turn anyone away. There are a few clients that come from the surrounding areas and most of them live within walking distance of our center. Additionally, when someone who can’t make ends meet or is housed in a shelter or hotel comes to us, we provide them with emergency food without asking for documentation.?

?We provide many different modes of food distribution, including:?

• ?Our Daily Bread?

We are open six days a week Monday through Saturday, so we always have ready to eat food available for those who come hungry or do not have access to cooking facilities. This means that most of the food we distribute is ready to eat, such as sandwiches that are donated by community partners from across Union County and beyond. We also offer bread and baked goods that have been donated or gleaned from local supermarkets.?

• Grocery Distributions?

St. Joseph’s receives five allocations of food from the Community Food Bank of NJ (CFBNJ) each month. We distribute that food on the third and fourth Tuesdays, and second and third Saturdays of the month. ?

• Farmer’s Market?

The last Friday of each month is designated as our Farmer’s Market, when we primarily offer fresh produce that we have received from CFBNJ and gleaned from local stores.??

• Pantry Bags?

For our registered clients, we provide a bag of non-perishable food and a protein such as chicken, ground beef or ground turkey that has been delivered to us from CFBNJ. I then supplement those bags with fresh fruit and vegetables that we’ve purchased ourselves.?

• Community Kitchen?

On Saturdays, a rotating lineup of eight different churches?throughout the county provide food that their volunteers serve as a hot meal to our community. It was necessary to pivot to a grab-and-go model early in the pandemic, yet we didn’t miss a day of service. Now our kitchen and dining room have reopened so guests can dine indoors again.?

While some of these programs are open to anyone, others are specifically for New Jersey residents and/or Elizabeth residents. Our clients all have economic needs or already qualify for WIC or SNAP benefits, or their children qualify for free and reduced meals at school. Families in any of these categories automatically become eligible to register with us as a client. Registering as a client allows our team to provide additional support, such as prescription assistance to afford life saving medication, to eligible clients.?

The number of people coming to your organization for help is already high. Why do you think this is happening? Would you please share some of what you are seeing and hearing from the neighbors you serve??

I think it’s a few things. We're seeing more new immigrants to the area. Lately we've been seeing folks from Peru and Venezuela coming into the area. We’re also seeing people with increased rental assistance needs. There have been more increases in rents, so some individuals have not been able to maintain their current housing because they can't keep up with the increases in rents. So, then they're looking for new housing or they're being temporarily placed in shelters. And another major reason has been the increase in food prices. We are up 20- 25% more clients and servicing more people than last year at this time.?

As you work on the front lines, closest to the issue of food security and those who are trying to survive through it, what do you anticipate the coming months will look like? ?

Our customers are looking for fresh fruits and vegetables. They're looking for protein items. When we have eggs, they go quickly. ?

We’re really trying to offer healthier foods overall. I joined the team in September 2020 and that is when we started purchasing fruits and vegetables. In the past, we relied solely on the robust supply of non-perishable foods and what produce we received from the Community Food Bank of NJ or through donations to share with our customers.?

I’m a registered dietician and I always tell the story that most of my background has been in nutrition education. But like I've said so many times, all the nutrition education in the world doesn't mean anything if people don't have access to wholesome and healthy foods. My work still focuses on education, except it now includes educating our neighbors, donors, and volunteers too.?

The food security conversation is shifting from “feeding the need” to “shortening the line.” What might that look like in your community??

We are invested in making our pantry shopping experience more dignified and client focused. Through our capital campaign earlier this year, we can increase our footprint by constructing two new buildings. One of the new buildings will be dedicated to our food programs, which means that instead of continuing to distribute pre-packed bags of food, our clients will have agency and choice to come in and shop for the healthier foods they know their families will eat. ?

In addition, we’re providing adult learning classes such as English as a Second Language and computer skills training, along with re-instituting supportive services to help people with their cover letters and job applications. We had to pause those supports during the height of the pandemic, but we’re back to offering four classes throughout the day to accommodate our clients’ work and school schedules.

What gives you hope??

What gives me hope is how we tend to be a bridge for our community. Union County is very diverse. There are some affluent areas and underserved areas. However, we have amazing volunteers and donors from all areas who are willing to share their time and resources through us. Our relationships span generations. One of our volunteers who has been with us since we opened in 1986, brought their children to volunteer. Now their grandchildren work beside them in the community kitchen. The sense of connectedness this work provides inspires us to do what we can to support our neighbors in working toward a brighter future.??

Visit St. Joseph's website to learn more and connect with their team.

This article is part of the NJ Office of the Food Security Advocate's Stories from Our Neighbors multimedia series, which amplifies the day-to-day experiences of social profit community-based organizations across the state, their teams, customers and neighbors to build a healthy understanding of charitable food providers' work and drive collaborations to strengthen the food system for everyone. View the first installment in the series here.