“Do you know what the word tzedakah means?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling like I was back in my Jewish Sunday School.
But the educator posing the question was not my Sunday School teacher. She was firebrand and activist, Reverend Michelle White, Priest of Christ Episcopal Church in Teaneck. “Reverend Chellie,” with a smile that embraces the whole world was talking about meeting Rabbi Joel Pitkowsky of Congregation Beth Sholom just down the street from Christ Church and forming an alliance of hope and faith with his Congregation to provide food, diapers, and support to those in need in Teaneck, Englewood, and Hackensack.
“Christ Church and Congregation Beth Sholom are very service-minded. We have worked very productively together. It’s not about religion, it’s about the hope that you have in your heart. I am a Christian; I am a human being. I have hope. The entire world is at the disposal of the hopeful.”
Reverend Chellie is pleased with the strong relationship of hope and service she has built with members of the Jewish community in Teaneck. She is proud of her special kind of diplomacy.
During the pandemic many synagogues were holding their services outdoors under tents. One Saturday, the Jewish sabbath and active day for the Christ Church food pantry, she noticed a gentleman walking cross the church property on his way to his shul. “Hey,” she roared. “If you’re gonna walk across the church property, you need to come with a box of diapers!” Much to her delight he responded, “Tell me what you’re doing and how can I help?”
He told her about tzedakah – and that he had an email list of 12,000 names. He asked what she needed (diapers and food) and he sent out an email to his 12,000-member list. Food and dollars rolled in in response: Tzedakah!
Reverend Michelle White began her journey of faith, hope and extraordinary energy at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and grew up in Queens. A product of the public school system which she believes in deeply, Reverend Chellie graduated from Bayside High School and began her college career at SUNY Stonybrook where she earned her bachelor’s degree, majoring in chemistry and biology. She then earned her MS and PHD at Fordham University which she credits with helping to form her theologically.
Reverend Chellie was raised primarily by her grandmother who traveled from her native Jamaica to New York in steerage of an American Fruit Company ship. She comments that the American Fruit Company ravaged the island of Jamaica. She also points out that her grandmother entered the United States through Ellis Island – “I don’t think most people know that we came that way too.”
Reverend Chellie’s grandfather had worked on the Panama Canal, dying as a young man of stomach cancer from the exposure to toxins at that work. Her grandmother raised four children by working as a live-in in Summit, New Jersey. She left her children on their own in East Orange, returning home on weekends to cook and prepare them for the week ahead. Her other weekend activity with her children was to serve at Trinity and Epiphany Churches, imbuing her children with the importance of service to community.
After college, Reverend Chellie started a career as a teacher and administrator in the public school system. While she enjoyed teaching, she moved into administration because she thought she could influence the lives of children and families.
After 35 years she quit education because she was called to service in the church. She enrolled in Union Theological Seminary, where, as she says, she and the other students were taught to be “hellraisers!” They taught me, “You have a Voice. You must use your Voice. And they taught me how.”
After graduating from Union in the late 90’s, she worked in the South Bronx with gang members. “They taught me a great deal,” she says. “They had a sense of God – of something larger than themselves.”
After a brief venture back in public education in New Rochelle, she and her partner Ann Marie moved to Milford, Pennsylvania in the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem where Reverend Chellie started training for ordination at a small church. However, Ann Marie was pregnant, and Reverend Chellie had no job. So, she went to the Diocese of Newark and served a church in Hoboken. In Hoboken, Rev. Chellie discovered that too many of the children from public housing were thrown into special ed classes and graduation rates were abysmally low. She worked with the children and their families who were residents of public housing, mobilizing them to exercise their Voice.
In 2012, Reverend Chellie accepted a call to Christ Episcopal Church in Teaneck.. She arrived with Hurricane Sandy, so began her ministry by packing up the folks from Christ Church and heading out to the Rockaways to help with the storm devastation. Knowing no one in the Rockaways, she was guided by a church member who was an organizer for Local 1199 of the Hospital Workers Union who told her: “You need to establish relationships in the community if you want to get a job done." This mentor also reminded her that the Church is a community organization. "You need to stop functioning as a private club because people need help”.
Back in Teaneck, Reverend Chellie began learning about what would become the powerful mission that she serves through Christ Episcopal Church. The Church is near Whittier School. She knew that in every school community (even as comfortable a community as Teaneck), there are kids that are food insecure. She learned that 25-30% of the students at Whittier school were food insecure. She began working with Center for Food Action in Englewood and former Superintendent Barbara Pinsak, continuing now with Dr. Christopher Irving, with a critical goal: To get food to the food insecure children on weekends.
The pandemic made it necessary to expand the food pantry at the Church on Saturdays to provide support for struggling families. As a result, this small church was able to provide food support to over 40,000 people. She discovered that many young mothers were torn between buying food or buying diapers. So, Reverend Chellie and the church membership established “Just Diapers.”
A member of the church who was Head of the Ridgewood Montessori School instructed, “At the other end of this can of soup is somebody’s child – somebody’s child who is hungry. It will make you see a can of soup in a very different way. And the child will think, ‘the people of Teaneck care about me.’”
With great help from the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, Reverend Michelle White lives her hope and practices Faith through her action. Through Christ Episcopal Church with her community of other churches, Congregation Beth Sholom, members of the Christian and Jewish communities of Teaneck, her service includes:
- The Faith, Hope and Love Food Pantry at the Church.
- Just diapers.
- Yearly Thanksgiving dinner serving fried turkey and fixins’ to over 500 guests who are in need.
- Feeding and clothing the homeless.
- Mentoring Brownies, Cub Scouts, Boy and Girl Scouts.
- Yearly Breakfast with Santa with delicious food and gifts for children of the Community.
- Organizing the restaurants in Teaneck to provide dinners for Holy Name healthcare workers in the early devastating days of the pandemic.
- Providing dinners for FDU students, many living in their cars, struggling to pay both tuition and living costs.
With all the extraordinary work they do, Reverend Chellie and Ann Marie are proudest, by far, of their two children, Ashlee, 14, and Church, 11, students at TJ Middle School.
Reverend Michelle White is an Activist of Faith. “You can go home and say your prayers, but if you’re not doing something, it’s nothing.”
She comments on people who see loss and sadness and devastating need and who say, “Somebody needs to do something.” Her answer: "You are the Somebody! You can’t say 'I’m afraid to do it, I can’t do it.' We’re responsible for each other."
Reverend White has a powerful message for the people of this township. “The Promise of Teaneck is one I’m unwilling to surrender.” With Reverend Michelle White leading the way, we all will never surrender.
