Letter from the President

Well, now, 2020 was a year.  I don’t think any of us will ever forget it!

We mourn the 500,000 people who have lost their lives in our country – and the millions around the world – due to the COVID 19 pandemic.

We tend to think of the here-and-now, and believe that we are in a unique position.  Yet a similar pandemic occurred a century ago . . . and a century before that.  And . . .

And we still have the unfortunate who are homeless and hungry for all this time.  Yet we are here, now, and we need to help those in need.

And this is why Family Promise exists.  To help those families who are homeless, who are hungry, who have lost their jobs, who need our help.  It is not a coincidence that we are here – it is the reason we are here.

We responded in 2020 to this changed environment, and did so quickly:

• We moved families in our Network program into hotels so they can be safe and be able to spend time with our case managers – and we have continued to accept new families into our program
• We spent resources to prevent families from losing their apartments
• We increased the number of apartments we rent to enable more families to spend the time they need to get better jobs and prepare for self-sufficient lives
• We partnered with World Central Kitchen and served 46,000 meals and 9,000 boxes of produce in Englewood
• We now lead a new effort, Neighbors Helping Neighbors, partnering with other non-profits to distribute meals in Englewood
• We used to serve 100 meals a night to people in the dining room at our dinner program in Hackensack every night of the year . . . now we pack the meals in to-go containers and distribute up to 170 a night to people in motels and at the shelter in Hackensack (serving nearly 50,000 meals in 2020)

2020 was an amazing year.  Yet we never missed a beat.  We never stopped answering the phone – and, as a result, we are helping more families than ever.

We thank you for your support in so many ways.  If you are looking for another fun way to help so many people, join us and buy a raffle ticket that will support all of our programs – read more about that in this issue of The Promise.  You might even be a big winner.  And, when you win – our families win.

Stay safe.

Paul Shackford
President of the Board of Trustees