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.

To carry out this mission, Respond has developed programs that:

  • Provide more than 300 full-time, part-time and seasonal community based jobs in Respond programs
  • Provide care for 200+ infants and toddlers age two weeks to 2 years and for more than 600 preschoolers in a county-wide system of early care and education, 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 750 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 $16,000,000 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
  • Operate a summer career exploration internship program in local businesses for high school students living in Camden city
  • Design a volunteer summer experience for 13 to 15 year-olds who age out of 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 within a broad menu of social services, direct and through referral
  • Provide seasonal employment for college students as mentors for special youth projects and in preschool classrooms
  • Provide emergency housing units for Camden residents displaced by catastrophic emergency, with referrals from the City of Camden
  • Assist Respond staff members to move upward through career ladder training, providing tuition reimbursement, participation in state and national training workshops, CDA certification and other educational and training competencies
  • Engage in a process for NAEYC national accreditation for Respond child care centers
  • Administer a senior adult day center where community elders are safe, socialize with peers, participate in activities including computer learning, a ceramics lab, workshops in art and music, trips, assistance with social services and a nutritious mid-day meal
  • Provide volunteer opportunities and internships in Respond programs for undergraduate and graduate level college students and others who bring value-added services to our constituencies
  • Secured a 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 rental housing and home ownership opportunities for individuals and families
  • Share literacy, nutrition and health programs to parents, grandparents and children in cooperation with local community partners
  • Design intergenerational, hands-on projects in art and music and other shared activities for young persons of all ages to engage with older adults at our elders’ center and beyond
  • Organize an ad hoc Youth Advisory Council to assist in framing and planning for programs that target areas of need identified by young persons in the city of Camden
  • Design programs and develop protocols for learning employability skills and implement designs for direct services to youth and adults in our New Worker Job Development and Vocational Training Center in North Camden, a 24,000 square ft. $4.6m center completed in mid-2009. Target areas for instruction include Culinary Arts and Automotive Technology.
  • Help develop a partnership to assist staff members of Respond and peer agency personnel to learn about resources available in the broader Camden community 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
  • Partnered in the establishment of an Earned Income Tax Credit Campaign to encourage families living in the city of Camden not only to apply for the Credit but become aware of other healthy financial practices
  • With the support of government, foundations, the United Way, the faith community and private donations, enter our 43rd year in 2010 of working with residents of our community and our peers to develop and manage programs that respond to the self-identified needs of individuals and families

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 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 came together to form 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, opened at 9th and Linden Streets. Together they served 90 children. Both remain in operation today.

By 1975, administrative offices had opened at 532 State Street in North Camden (the current location) 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 1995, 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 2009-2010 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 was one of the new, comprehensive programs that Respond has provided for children, senior citizens, adults and families.

Respond continues to create economic development and educational initiatives, with the opening of a new job training facility in North Camden in the summer of 2009. The New Worker Job Development Center is a state-of-the-art vocational training facility for culinary arts, automotive technology and other developing occupational areas. It also provides on-site child care and demonstration preschool classrooms for teacher training. Training in vocational areas is targeted to out-of-school older youth, unemployed and underemployed adults and those returning from the correctional system in a holistic program approach that includes adult basic education.

Two pilot programs in culinary arts, one for local teens and the other for adjudicated young men started off-site in cooperation with the United Way, the Rotary Club of Haddonfield and the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission. These programs have now moved their operations to the new facility where they will be joined by other project areas to assist the most challenged populations to become self-sufficient and economically independent.

The PATH Homeless Day Center was opened 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 for achievement of independence and economic self-sufficiency.

In this 43rd year of program operation, the agency’s diverse staff and volunteers number more than 300 and Respond has succeeded in building an outstanding example of how people from many 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, and the ability to direct that knowledge into viable programs have combined with exceptional support from staff, from government, foundations, the faith community, the United Way, local business, industry and private donors to make 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)

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