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The
MIssion and History of Respond Inc.
Respond, Inc. is
a voluntary, not for profit (501) (C) (3) agency created by community
residents to enhance and promote the economic independence and general
welfare of individuals and families residing in Camden City and county.
This mission is carried forth in the provision of comprehensive services
in child care, a senior adult center, programs for homeless adults,
rental housing and home ownership, youth services, employment, economic
development, job training and associated programs that help people help
themselves.
Consistent with
our mission, enabling people to be healthy, productive members of the
community is the goal of everything we do at Respond. We understand
that most people want to lead useful, productive lives that benefit
themselves and the society. They don't want handouts; they want the
chance to earn their own way. We believe that even the most needy people
can succeed if supportive services to back them up are deeply rooted
in, and grow out of, our community. All of our activities at Respond
are guided by one conviction: If we provide individuals and families
with basic services and opportunities, they will grow to lead more productive
lives.
To carry out this
mission, Respond has developed programs that:
- Provide more than
400 full-time, part-time and seasonal community based jobs in Respond
programs
- Provide an enriching
environment for more than 200 infants and toddlers age two weeks to
2½ years and for more than 800 preschoolers in a county-wide
system of child development centers, including the operation under contract
with the Camden City Board of Education of 22 Abbott District classrooms
for three- and four-year-old children living in the City of Camden.
- Provide more than
800 families with child care, making it possible for parents to work
or train for employment
- Provide child
care that allows parent/families to generate more than $20 million in
income, contributing to the well being of the local economy
- Employ seniors
from the age of 60 to 90-plus years in all areas of agency operation
- Administer a summer
career exploration internship program in local businesses for high school
students from the city
- Design a volunteer
experience for 13 to 15 year-olds (children who are too old for summer
camp and are too young for employment programs) with job shadowing,
employability skills training, mentoring, field trips and cultural venues
- Operate year-round
enrichment programs for school-age children in before- and after-school
programs and a summer theme-based enrichment camp
- Develop and operate
day, emergency overnight and transitional housing programs for homeless
single adults and assist participants in obtaining employment, job training
and permanent housing
- Provide seasonal
employment for college students as mentors for special youth projects
and in other positions
- Provide emergency
housing units for Camden residents displaced by catastrophic emergency
- Assist staff members
to move forward through career path training, providing tuition reimbursement,
participation in state and national training workshops, Child Development
Associate certification and other educational and training competencies
- Engage in a process
for National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
national accreditation for Respond child care centers
- Administer a senior
adult day center to help prevent institutionalization of our aging population
- Provide volunteer
opportunities and internships in Respond programs for local students
and community residents of all ages
- Secured a $1 million
foundation grant to build state-of-the-art playgrounds at our child
care centers and make the facilities available for use by community
residents
- Pilot a hands-on
training program for housing rehabilitation and maintenance skills in
a partnership with participants in our homeless programs for single
adults
- Designate housing
for both rental and home ownership for individuals and families
- Bring literacy
programs to parents and children in cooperation with local community
partners
- Design intergenerational,
hands-on art and music projects and other shared activities for young
persons to engage with older adults
- Design programs
for learning employability skills and workplace protocols
- Initiate economic
development projects in the community, including the funding of a $4.5
million career training facility and preschool/child-development center
in North Camden
- With the support
of government, foundations, the United Way, faith communities and private
donations, celebrate over 40 years of working with community residents,
our peers and constituents to develop and manage programs that respond
to the self-identified needs of individuals and families
- Focus on the creation
where sustainable communities of peace, hope, healing, harmony, and
wholeness exist through a partnership with the Communities of Shalom
History
Respond, Inc. was created in 1967 through a joint venture of residents
of the North Camden community and the United Methodist Church in Haddonfield,
a nearby suburban NJ town inhabited by many former Camden residents.
The church assigned its Minister of Mission to meet with neighborhood
residents in North Camden. A survey of needs was undertaken and child
care for parents who were in school or training for employment became
the highest priority.
The minister of mission, the principal at Sewell Elementary School,
a teacher at the school and other community residents formed the North
Camden Day Care Project that established the first child care center
in the area, using space in the State Street United Methodist Church
at Sixth and State Streets. In 1967, the program housed 30 children
in a half-day program. Wilbert Mitchell, a young teacher at Sewell School,
was appointed the first Executive Director and took a leave of absence
from the school district. He has led the agency throughout its history
and continues to provide the vision and hard work necessary to ensure
its continued success. The child care project was incorporated in 1968,
with two programs in operation, the first continuing at the State Street
church and a second, the Linden Street Day Care Center at 9th and Linden
Streets. Together they served 90 children. Both remain in operation.
By 1975, administrative offices had opened at 532 State Street in North
Camden (where they are today) and the agency was named Respond, Inc.
In the interim, Vine Street Day Care opened, and the child care programs
were all extended to a full day. The infant program began in 1972, followed
by the Winslow and Merchantville Day Care centers. East Camden and Bank
Street Centers were opened in the 1980s. The Firehouse Center on Vine
Street opened in 1989, housing both preschool and School Age Child Care
programs.
Respond began operation of the New Jersey Abbott District 3- and 4-year-old
classrooms for the Camden Board of Education in 1998 at scattered sites
in the agency's existing child development centers and at the new Fairview
center in the city. For the opening of the 2007-2008 school year, Respond
had 22 Abbott district classrooms. Stockton and Washington & Williams
Child Development Centers opened in the fall of 1999 and Respond assumed
operation of Virtua-Camden's Leaps & Bounds Child Care Center in
the year 2000. Services for infants and preschoolers expanded in 2003
with the opening of the North Camden Child Development Center at 6th
and State Streets at the site of the former Check-In Market.
State Street Housing and the Community Elders Council were created in
1972 and 1974. The Summer Youth Career Exploration Program, the Summer
Enrichment Camp, the Teen Volunteer Program and Youth Advisory Board
followed over the next two decades. A weekly intergenerational workshop
at the Elders' center in partnership with members and staff of the Philadelphia
Orchestra is one of the new and exciting programs that Respond provides
for children, senior citizens, adults and families.
Respond continues to create economic development and adult education
initiatives and will open a job training facility in North Camden early
in 2009. The New Worker Job Development Center is a state-of-the-art
vocational training facility for culinary arts, automotive technology,
and other demand occupational areas. It will also provide on-site child
care and demonstration preschool classrooms. Training services will
be targeted to out-of-school youth, unemployed and underemployed adults
in a holistic program approach.
A pilot program in culinary arts has started off-site in cooperation
with the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission pending readiness of
the new facility. Other projects to assist the most challenged populations
to become self-sufficient are in development and planning stages.
The PATH Homeless Day Center was developed in 1989 in response to the
community's need for a day shelter facility with essential services
for homeless men. An emergency low demand Code Blue daily overnight
shelter from October through April was added several years later, and
continues to serve homeless adults from both Camden City and County.
Temporary housing units for city families displaced by emergency and
Crossroads House, a transitional housing facility for men provided by
federal HUD funds, opened in 2004.
In 1993, Respond entered the world of direct welfare reform programming,
selected by the state of New Jersey to operate a pilot program for single
adult recipients of what was then known as Municipal Welfare in the
city of Camden. In 1998, Respond was the lead agency for a grant under
the collaborative Employment Partnership of Camden County at the Community
Planning and Advocacy Council to establish a New Worker Center on Washington
Street in the Lanning Square neighborhood of center city Camden. Programs
providing services to both General Assistance and TANF recipients continued
with funding from the New Jersey Department of Human Services, Division
of Family Development through June of 2004, when New Jersey merged all
to-work programs into the newly created Department of Labor and Workforce
Development. Staff members from the New Worker Center brought a strong
voice to the planning, development, design and implementation of workforce
training, always advocating for sound client-centered program models
that stress personal responsibility as the main component of achieving
independence and economic self-sufficiency.
Since its inception in 1967, the agency's diverse staff and volunteers
have grown to number 400. Respond has succeeded in building an outstanding
example of how people from diverse backgrounds and all walks of life
can work together toward the common goal of an enriched community for
all of its citizens. The respect of that community to know its own needs,
the ability to direct that knowledge into viable programs combined with
exceptional support from government, foundations, the faith community,
the United Way, local business and industry and private donors have
all been instrumental in making Respond, Inc. the successful organization
that it is today.
>>Read
the Message from the Executive Director
Communities
of Shalom
In 1992, the United Methodist Church witnessed the violence and riots
in Los Angeles which brought about a resolution in the church to create
peace and wholeness in communities of the world. The Communities of
Shalom was created as an initiative of the General Board of Global Ministries
in an effort to bring shalom to the world, one community at a time.
This organization has developed into a grass-root, faith motivated,
community development network spanning the USA and into Africa.
Though the Communities
of Shalom was officially started in 1992, the United Methodist Church
in Haddonfield has recognized the healing and harmony which is desperately
needed in the City of Camden through the creation of Respond, Inc. Their
commitment to the community since 1967 embodies the goals and values
of shalom, making a perfect partnership between the Communities of Shalom
and Respond. Through this partnership, we focus on the creation of economically
and ecologically sustainable communities of peace, hope healing, harmony,
and wholeness in which all God's people experience shalom by supporting
local congregations and community residents as they work together to
renew community life.
The Communities
of Shalom equips local ministry teams in asset-based and collaborative
approaches to systematic change, economic prosperity, healing and health,
and sustainability. This six-point approach to community transformation
can be easily remembered by the letters SHALOM:
S = systematic and sustainable change
H = healing, health, harmony, and wholeness
A = asset-based community development
L = love for God, self, and neighbor
O = organizing for direct action
M = multicultural, multifaith collaboration
For more information
on how to participate in a shalom ministry near you, request shalom
training and/or become a new community of shalom, visit: www.communitiesofshalom.org
"Seek the
shalom of the city where I have sent you for in it's shalom, you will
find your shalom." (Jeremiah 29:7)
Copyright
© 2008 Respond Inc. All rights reserved.
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