A half-dozen Passaic County nonprofits have teamed up to create the “Passaic County Pandemic Partnership,” with a goal of sharing resources and coordinating strategy to provide homebound and at-risk populations with food and other essential needs during the COVID-19 crisis.
The six organizations in the new coalition are:
- The Boys and Girls Club of Paterson and Passaic;
- CUMAC;
- Oasis — A Haven for Women and Children;
- Passaic County CASA;
- Paterson Habitat for Humanity; and
- Star of Hope Ministries.
The six aim to ensure that families in need continue to have uninterrupted access to vital services while minimizing community spread of the coronavirus. The coalition’s main focus is home delivery of meals and groceries, as well as services for the elderly, homebound and those involved in child protective services. The group also intends to aid food-insecure patients due for discharge from St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center.
“By establishing this partnership, we’re able to pool our organizational services, strengths and volunteers into a countywide resource network focused on ensuring that no struggling family is overlooked,” Erica Fischer-Kaslander, executive director of Passaic County CASA, said in a prepared statement. “This pandemic has impacted all of our organizations at a moment when our work is more necessary than ever.
“When we realized that there was overlap across the communities we serve, we began coordinating together to meet their rising and increasingly complex needs.”
The PCPP has already provided services to 8,700 individuals, it said, and plans to serve nearly 210,000 people in the coming weeks.
Support has been supplied in part by the Turrell Fund, a Montclair-based nonprofit that supports organizations helping youth. Evan Delgado, the fund’s director of programs, will serve as manager of the PCPP fund hosted by the Community Fund for New Jersey.
