Encouraging Words!
(a letter from Temple Shalom, Succasunna, to its congregants)
"In one month, we will proudly open our doors and wrap our arms around 14 guests; parents, children, and single women who do not have a place to live. With your help, we will provide breakfast and dinner and our guests will bunk down in our facility for a week. We are partnering with Family Promise, an organization that provides food, shelter, educational, work and housing opportunities to people experiencing homelessness.
Who are our guests?
Poverty often goes unseen. One of our upcoming guests, a student at Rutgers University, will be matriculating to medical school, but has no support net, no money, and lives week to week in different synagogues and churches until her life becomes financially stable.
Some call it Tzedakah. Some call it Tikkun Olam. But I would say that housing the homeless shows us the very best of what a congregation can be. We are caring for others, preserving their dignity, living our religious values. It is about family; their families and ours. This is one of the ways we can teach our children (and ourselves) that poverty and homelessness exists amongst us in Morris County.
How can you help?
- Set up the space and help clean up each day.
- Prepare meals
- Spend time getting to know our guests and letting them get to know us as human
beings. That is how tolerance and mutual understanding occur.
- Act as overnight hosts so that our guests will feel safe in their temporary space.
- Collect and donate any needed items"
If you would like to join our team of volunteers, we invite you to help one of our congregational partners during their hosting week, regardless of being a member.
To lend a hand and provide support to a host and to our shelter guests,
please call Nora Godown at 973.998.0820, ext.110.
