Below is a press release from the Hoboken Shelter on their 30th Anniversary Dinner and Fundraiser at the Hoboken Elks Lodge May3rd 2012 from 7-10pm….
The Hoboken Shelter Celebrates 30 Years Helping The Community
Celebration Dinner Will Honor Hoboken Volunteer Champion Todd Kinney
Hoboken, NJ, April 10, 2012, – Executive Director Jaclyn Cherubini started her career at The Hoboken Shelter with a simple goal: Move one guest into a home. While Cherubini’s ambitions grew as The Shelter’s services expanded, she focused on ensuring that first guest moved from, as she put it, the streets to the shelter to a home. As The Shelter gears up to celebrate its 30th anniversary, Cherubini has another reason to smile: her first guest will soon be moving into her very own apartment.
The 30th Anniversary Celebration Dinner commemorates the many years spent providing food, shelter, and programming. The dinner will take place at the Elks Lodge in Hoboken on May 3rd, 2012 from 7 to 10 p.m. Making a special appearance at the event will be two members of local band, Bern and the Brights. Carlo’s Bakery has generously donated a cake to the event. Tickets are available for purchase for $130 per person and tables of 8 are available for $1,000. Sponsorships and journal advertisements can be purchased until April 15th. For more information about purchasing a ticket, sponsorship, or journal ads, contact Marie Titus, Celebration Co-Chair, at 201-938-2829 or email anniversary@hobokenshelter.org.
The event honors The Shelter’s Volunteer Champion, Todd Kinney, a Hoboken resident and former board member. Kinney has contributed countless hours to help Hoboken’s homeless population. He successfully initiated The Shelter’s best known fundraiser, the Teak Silent Auction, which raises upwards of $15,000 annually. Kinney ran the auction for the past eight years, doing everything from gathering donations to advertising.
The Shelter opened its doors in 1982 and for three decades has given Hoboken’s most vulnerable population a warm meal and a safe place to sleep. In 2011, The Shelter provided more than 120,000 meals. At 6 p.m. most nights, the shelter is a flurry of activity, but the staff expertly balances the busy atmosphere. Guests may need anything from mail and phone access to a new pair of socks. Here, a population that largely remains invisible is treated with respect, creating a community inside the walls. The doorway leading to the administrative offices proclaims: “May you enter as a guest and leave as a friend.” The quotation, erected by members of The Shelter’s women’s group, reflects the attitude of many residents. The phrase became the theme for the 30th Anniversary Celebration.
Cherubini explains that The Shelter gives residents a “hand up, not a handout.” She and the staff help residents chart a course toward their own home as soon as they arrive. “The Shelter works with each and every individual that comes through our door to help them achieve their goal of moving into their own home,” said Cherubini. “In order to help guests attain this goal, we teach them how to save and budget their money. We also provide access to education and job training services.”
“So many people are living a paycheck away from homelessness. [Due to the economic recession,] this is an issue many of us can relate to and there are so many different ways the community can help, from volunteering to donating socks to supporting events,” says Karen Michane, a board member and volunteer. Fundraising events like the dinner account for a significant portion of the Shelter’s budget.
Event organizers hope to rally the Hoboken community and raise more than $40,000 to support the shelter. Many sponsors are helping The Shelter reach this goal including, Platinum Sponsors, All Saints Episcopal Parish, Eastern Millwork Inc., and Hoboken University Medical Center and Silver Sponsors BDO USA, The Provident Bank, and Singleton-Galmann Realty LLC. Event Co-Chairs Marie Titus and Karin Romans said, “It’s our hope the Hoboken community will come together to support an organization that’s been there every day serving meals, providing beds, and working hard to help those in need.”
Started by faith communities in Hoboken to address the critical needs of the homeless, today The Shelter is as a community partnership that changes lives. “We are focused on feeding the whole person. [We take] a holistic approach to ending homelessness,” Cherubini explains. “By providing food and shelter, we are taking care of their immediate needs. By offering [guests] the chance to learn to write a resume or earn their GED, we are giving them a chance to move forward out of homelessness. The goal here is to end homelessness one person at a time.”
The Hoboken Shelter
The Hoboken Shelter’s mission is to be a community partnership that transforms lives by providing meals for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, and services to support people to become housed. They shelter 50 people nightly, serve 350 meals daily, and provide such support services as food, shelter, case management, counseling, job and life skills training, creative arts workshops, and emergency homelessness prevention grants. These services help homeless guests develop the skills needed to gain employment, achieve independence, and re-integrate into the community. Please visit the shelter website at www.hobokenshelter.org or check out their Facebook page for more information on the organization.
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