Paterson Habitat alongside five nonprofits in Passaic County (CUMAC, Oasis A Haven for women and children, Star of Hope, Passaic County CASA, and Boys & Girls Club of Paterson & Passaic) are working together, as the Passaic County Pandemic Partnership (PCPP), during the COVID-19 Pandemic to share resources, coordinate strategy, planning, and establish a mutual aid network to provide homebound and at-risk populations with food and other essential needs in the most effective and nimble way possible.
The PCPP’s collective efforts are providing services to over 8,700 individuals weekly. With a laser focus on ensuring that basic needs such as food and infant products are provided, the partnership is helping to ensure that families in need continue to have uninterrupted access to crucial services while minimizing the community spread of COVID-19. The group’s focus areas will evolve as the needs of the community evolve throughout the pandemic and subsequent fallout.
“By establishing this partnership, we’re able to pool our organizational services, strengths, and volunteers into a county-wide resource network focused on ensuring that no struggling family is overlooked,” explained Erica Fischer-Kaslander, Executive Director of Passaic County CASA. “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. Ultimately, we created the ‘Passaic County Pandemic Partnership’ to amplify each organization’s impact and to ensure that we are taking care of our most vulnerable residents. I am thankful to be a part of a community where organizations and neighbors are supporting each other in a time of significant need.”
Our partnership with PCPP:
Trucks: Our Restore trucks have been repurposed from picking up furniture to picking up and distributing food from the food packing sites to macro distribution locations where food boxes are distributed to 2,500 families each week.
Drivers: Our volunteers are part of the driver teams delivering food kits to homebound residents. 150 families are currently receiving contactless home delivery of food.
Food and Hygiene kits: Our volunteers from St. Peter’s Prep are transporting kits from CUMAC to St. Joseph’s Hospital, Paterson so when food insecure patients are discharged, they leave with the necessary items they need to shelter in place for up to 14 days. In the first 3 days this site was operational over 300 individuals were served.
Food Drives: We are holding food and baby supply drives. See below for more information on our drives and how you can get involved!
Food & Baby supply donations:
o Organize a drive: You can organize a food/baby supply drive with your family, friends, and neighbors.
o Collect items: Collect items needed from the list below from your local supermarket or collect items you aren’t using from your pantry.
o Door to Door: Order online and have items shipped directly to us. You can do that by visiting our online donation drive on Amazon (https://a.co/aFlTGlF).
Donated items can dropped off at:
Paterson Habitat for Humanity
146 North 1st Street, Paterson on:
Mondays & Thursdays between 11am and 2pm
Items needed include:
• Canned protein (tuna, spam, vienna sausage, chicken, etc.)
• Pasta
• Pasta Sauce
• Peanut Butter
• Jelly
• Rice
• Beans
• Baby diapers (especially sizes 4, 5, and 6)
• Baby formula
