From Advertising to Advocacy: A Community Hero's Journey

Beacon (00:01.908)
One of the best ways you can support the Bridgeton Beacon is to go to the Bridgeton Beacon YouTube channel and hit subscribe. When you hit subscribe, we're going to need you to also click the little bell icon so that you actually get alerts when we post new episodes. But this is a great way for you to support the Bridged in Beacon in lieu of an actual donation or monetary support.

Beacon (00:38.542)
Welcome to the Bridgeton Beacon. I have the honor of meeting today with Ms. Young. And let me be the first to congratulate you. You are one of the award recipients from the Bridgeton Area Chamber of Commerce 2024 Heroes Award. And Ms. Young is receiving a Community Hero Award.

which from the looks of all the things that you have done is a well deserved honor. So let me be the first to congratulate you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And I'm just going to ask you to keep your voice up so we can get the audio and hear you. So I'm just going to jump right in. You.

You kind of reinvented yourself from the looks of it. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you correct me if I'm wrong. After 30 years in advertising. 30 years in advertising, correct. You went back to school. I went back to school for early childhood education. I stayed home for a year after 2009 in the stock market.

Beacon (01:55.95)
I I was going to go to Cumberland County, which is now Rowan, to get a degree in early childhood education. That is fantastic. What led you to make that decision? And again, I'm just going to ask you to try to keep your voice up for me. Well, when I...

When I was young, I loved working with kids. I liked to create things with kids, help people in daycares and things like that when I was in school. And I just had a passion for making sure that kids were aware of things that were going on around them, how they can create things that didn't cost a lot of money.

And that gave me the opportunity to jump into a new venue and that would be to be a teacher.

And I always like speaking with people about their paths. And while you were in college, after you'd gone back, you ended up working with a certain pastor. And from the looks of it, that led to the trajectory that basically led you here. Can you tell us about that? Yes, while I was in school, I had an opportunity to work at

in Millville at

Beacon (03:31.936)
Bethel, Bethel with Pastor Wilkins and he had an opening for a teacher's aid and I was able to get a position there and go to school at the same time.

So that helped me financially as far as the incidentals I needed for school and also gave me the opportunity to work alongside of teachers and working in a daycare with young children. And while you were there, you met with Fran Sykes. Is that where you met Fran? Fran Sykes. She gave me the opportunity to make a difference in Millville by offering families

on a way out of the system in which we would go out and offer programs. The roadblocks that keep a lot of females and males from moving forward is their kids cost of schooling and so forth.

they do not have the funding for a lot of things that would help them further their education and that and so forth. So we would identify families that had small children, partner with the daycares within the Cumberland area, whether it was Millville, Bridgeton, Vineland. We would pay for their kids to go to be placed in daycare.

Pascal Sykes would pay for that daycare and this gave the family the opportunity to use the funding that they had for that to whatever their education level was that they wanted to approve on or even if it was for getting an employment. Okay, so was this when you were with Bethel? That's when I was with Bethel. Okay, are you from Millville originally? I'm from Philadelphia. From Philadelphia, Philly girl, okay. What led you down here? Well, life in general.

Beacon (05:41.04)
I was born and raised in Philadelphia. I had a son that was born with sickle cell anemia and they said he wouldn't live past four. But through the grace of God, he made it to 17. And when he passed, I wanted to change, I wanted to change my whole way of

He also worked at the ad agency. was able to actually be a, they call a page, or back in the day what they said, candy stripers. He was the mail clerk. That was in Yeah, that was in Philly. That's when I worked for the ad agency. Oh, wow. They were very, very good to him. But once that chapter of my life was over, I wanted a piece of land.

Beacon (06:38.51)
I asked him to find me an acre of land, which he did. And I took two years renovating a house. And while I was, I would have still back and forth in Philadelphia. And once I had the house where it was livable is when I actually moved down here. And.

So got the wound up working for Bethel, going to college, working with Pascal Sykes. And then I moved over to CHS, which was after I graduated from Cumberland College, I went to CHS. And that's the Center of Human Services. That's in Bridgeton. That's in person. As a matter of fact, it's right across from Gateway.

Beacon (07:29.39)
I spent two years teaching Latinos how to speak English with my limited Spanish, but we both taught each other. an ESL teacher? Yes. A wonderful teacher. So after that, it's my understanding that you were fortunate enough to meet Mayor Albert Kelly of the great city of Bridgeton. And that led you to your current position. Is that right? Yes.

Mayor Kelly was the commencement speaker for CHS. And I introduced myself to him. And through a mutual friend, she recommended it. Because I said, well, what am I going to do now? And she said, why don't you just go up to Gateway and see what they have to offer? And I spoke with Mayor Kelly, gave him a little bit of my background.

working for the ad agency, although I was not a designer. In 30 years, I learned how to design. And I came, and he offered me a position trying to design some of the things that worked for Gateway Programs. And...

We wound up getting another grant from Pascal's site. No, this one was from New Jersey Health Initiative. was building youth. It was called the Next Generation of Community Leaders. And he entrusted me with that grant. through New Jersey Health Initiative and Gateway, we partnered to...

get Bristol youth together and tried to uplift them to help their community. It was all youth generated. They wanted to do a summer feeding program. So we're thinking that, you know, how are we going to get this food throughout the city of Bristol? They came and we actually use this space that we're in now was their meeting room. We came up with a bus. I designed a bus.

Beacon (09:42.284)
with all kind of food information on it. So was basically a mobile feeding bus. We took a regular school bus and had it rewrapped with, which still exists, it's in Gateways, it's on Gateways property, promoting healthy foods. And it was Century Bank that also helped fund that project. Locations, and it was a seven hour workday.

So they would spend an hour and a half in each location, not only bringing food, they also brought entertainment, whether it was hula hoops, books, things they were self, they were engaging with the children. So this was truly student led? Student led. Where did you get the youth to help run this program or create this program? We had a more like...

We didn't put an ad. We put flyers out throughout the community trying to get youth. The restrictions for New Jersey Health Initiative was that they had to be 14 or older. And it started off as a one-year program, then you get 14 more youth. I talked to New Jersey Health Initiative and said that wouldn't work.

You don't take a 14 year old, give them hope and then tell them you're done.

they changed the whole trajectory because it wasn't just in Bridgeton. They had a leak seven different counties throughout the whole state of New Jersey. There was Trenton, was Hoboken. We were the Bridgestone. We were Bridgestone. And this was what is referred to as the food summit? The food summit was the kickoff. Okay. Because throughout not just New Jersey,

Beacon (11:46.082)
Hunger is one of the biggest things. The cost of food as we can see now, it's just what can we do to make it aware, make people aware of it? Mayor Kelly was adamant about partnering with the...

that particular group, I'm trying to think of her name. I was trying to think of her name, but I think her name was Sandy. And they wanted to come down and do a food summit. So Mayor Kelly met with the college at that time and they wanted to do this great big food summit. And of course they needed promotional materials and so forth. I was instrumental in doing.

And that first food summit, you partnered with Live Healthy Bridgeton, the Bridgeton area Chamber. I'm sorry, the Bridgeton area Transit Bus, supported by Pascal Sykes Foundation, Next Generation Community Leaders, all in collaboration with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Is that accurate? Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was the next generation of youth. The food summit was done by

Live healthy, Bridgeton. Okay. And that really kicked off this mobile feeding bus. Now is that bus still in existence? The bus is no longer in existence. We would like to get it back up and running through the, especially during the summer months.

but it's just trying to get a group of people that one-to-one sponsored because it's an old school bus. Do you still have youth in the area assisting with the program itself? Is it still going on or did COVID have a- COVID.

Beacon (13:42.99)
As a matter of fact, that was the kids last year. They literally worked the whole summer of COVID to make sure that these families could be fed. And what they did is they had cars that they had their own cars.

They would literally take, we had a list of the families that they were serving throughout Bridgestone, and they would take the food to the homes and just drop it off at the homes. But that was...

That was a hard time for them getting around during that time period. But, Bridgeton had some satellites. We, our location here at Gateway was a satellite in our Marina Center where the kids would package the food. the state had people coming in or school districts had people coming in, with a lot of foods and they allocated a certain amount for the kids to take to their families because they had a list of families that they would

feed and they would package it all up and drive it to that location and then at that point we also included seniors going to senior high rises we would go we would pick one senior high rise that was in the south side of Bridgestone one on the east side and

drop off. It's hard for the elderly to get out. Get out. Right. Yeah, and they were afraid to come out. So we would take food and just drop it off. We wouldn't go to the doors or anything, but we would partner with the person who ran the facility and drop it off at their community center. So these were groceries. They weren't prepared meals. They were prepared meals. They were also prepared meals. Who did the cooking?

Beacon (15:31.608)
Different people would donate food whether it was McDonald's because people weren't coming out to use the food. So they would give us the food. We would go to the school and the school district also partnered because we were also feeding kids. And so we would package up food. We knew how many people were in the household. We would give them if we did it on a Friday, we would give them enough food for the weekend. This way they didn't have to come out.

I can't think of any better thing to do than feed the poor, feed the hungry. And that's how we came up with Code Blue.

So let's transition into Code Blue because Code Blue is another major project that you were instrumental in developing and maintaining. So tell me about Code Blue. Code Blue was developed by Mayor Kelly and Pastor Rob from Bethany Grace and along with the city council and so forth. I came in on the second year of it.

had at that time pre-COVID, I was the coordinator between four churches. Moving the Department of Health and Management, they provided us with the COTS and all the things. These were warming or are warming centers. Right. We have to be called warming centers, shelters or government regulated.

Warming centers can be a little bit more relaxed because all your servicing is from six at night to six in the morning. Getting people through those bitterly cold evenings. there a certain temperature? 32, regulated by the government. So any time it's under 32 degrees? 32 for two consecutive hours between those hours of six at night and six in the morning.

Beacon (17:40.99)
So we get notification by our department.

Human Services that they check the weather and they'll tell us that it's going to be that temperature for either a stretch of days or even if it's just one night, then we know in advance to go prepare the facilities to open up. In some instances, it has been late nights and some of the facilities didn't open. We have one in Bridgestone, one Millville, and one in Vineland. We only have those three.

currently in existence now. So you started with this program in 2014, which was the second year and it's still going on. Where in Bridgeton can individuals go? Where's that warming site or center? Right on Gateways property. It's right across the parking lot. Is that staffed by all volunteers? Or primarily volunteers? Pre-COVID? Yes, all volunteers. When COVID hit, seniors and

and families were afraid to come out because we're dealing with a population of unknown health. So we offered to pay a certain amount, you we pay, but that's British, and don't, is strictly volunteer. Melville, some people get paid and some don't.

Gateway, we decided as a city to pay people to come and we would also accept volunteers as well. Because we also had people that would prepare food because it has to be done in a regulated area. What's the maximum approximate maximum number of individuals that can come into the Bridgestone facility on any given night? 30. Have you had it?

Beacon (19:40.56)
We've had 30 people. It started off being 20, then 24, because we don't want to turn people away. But our max is 30. And that reason is we still cannot get enough people to cover.

to cover to watch them. And we've also became, unfortunately, the nighttime soup kitchen. People will come in and tell you they're staying to get a meal and then they leave. That's hard for us. To turn someone away for a meal is not what we do. But it...

That must be a very humbling experience to witness. Yes, it is. I'm going to tell you that they're a pain, but they're my pain. We can't change people's habits. We don't know what path someone took to get to where they are. So we don't judge. We do say you cannot bring any weapons.

You cannot bring any open bottles. You can bring your beer in if it's in a can. We will put your name on it. And when you leave in the morning, you get your beer back. But you cannot bring alcohol and weapons into the facility. Fair enough. We get enough of...

toiletries and things volunteer to so they can wash up. direct them to the shower ministry. We don't have a shower on site, but Bethany Grace around the corner does. They have a Saturday shower ministry. We can get a little meal and stuff while you wait for your shower. And then we get enough clothing donations that we can either send them with or Bethany Grace at that time has clothing for them as well.

Beacon (21:40.142)
And the community donates a lot of scarves, hats, gloves, you know, as soon as they find out we're open. We get enough support from the community that will help us as far as those sort of things are concerned. Village of Hope. Tell me about that. Village of Hope started off as a program where we tried

to house the homeless. And these were individuals that had been released from incarceration. Is this somewhat of a reentry type of program or am I mistaken about that?

It started off to house the homeless. And unfortunately, trying to identify just six people and so forth and try to figure out where they are wasn't working out in the time frame. So we partnered with Chem Talk, who had a re-entry program. they said, because Gateway had already purchased

the homes. Where are they located? They are located over on Industrial Boulevard in Bridgestone near Kentock. Yes, okay. If you wanted to see it, could take you over. It turned out...

I did the design for the layout of how we wanted to see it. Ken Todd loved the layout. And the company, Pallet Homes, came in and within a day they put them all together. The houses were built for four people. We weren't going to put four people in these little tiny structures.

Beacon (23:41.154)
But, and it's fenced in, but it's not fenced in to keep them from coming out. It's fenced in to keep people from coming in and treating them as if they're like little guinea pigs or something. But it's been successful so far. We've had 19 people coming in.

and some of them had reconnected with families. The last gentleman that left, he was able to get himself an apartment. He found two kittens. was an introvert. Found a kitten that was on the property. Took care of it, would take his little money. He did find that he had a job working at one of the fast food restaurants in Bridgeton.

and he fostered that kitten and when he left he took his kitten with him. Like he started a family there. Yeah. So they're meant to be temporary situations. temporary. They max out at six months. This is where they can go. So it's a stepping stone. It's a stepping stone to your next step in your life. If there's a unit that's open,

for another person to come in, you're not forced out. we have to only keep six people in. So if you came in and we need your unit, we go through all the process. We partner with Drug and Alcohol. They provide us with job listing through all of South Jersey.

every Monday that's shipped to them so they can go through that. They get all the same resources, get the resources that Kintoc provides. They also get resources that Gateway provides as far as housing. So while they're in there, they can come to Gateway and start preparing for trying to find an apartment or if some of them stay in Bristol, some of them leave. But it helps them get their life and figure out what they want to

Beacon (25:52.016)
You're really serving them by giving them skills to move on as opposed to just a handout. Yes, yes. And we also wound up giving them, which they love, electric bikes. They also use the...

G-back bus, which stops, we made that a stop right in front so they can come out if they had a job at Walmart. They can come get that free bus and take that free bus to Walmart. Transportation issue is a huge issue. I just heard some of our legislators speak at a breakfast a couple weeks ago and the conversation went on to the topic of transportation and that is a true need. So that is a creative, innovative way to fill that.

need so that these folks can get to where they want to be, which is a job. Which is a job. the way when Mayor Kelly partnered with Pascal, with Fran Sykes from Pascal Sykes, we mapped out a plan where those buses connect with other buses that they fund. So if they went to Vineland,

you can use the GBAT bus, because the GBAT bus is greater Bridgeton area, so that's all that bus stays in. But then Vineland has a bus that's funded. not sure, don't want to say it's from Pascal, but it's similar. And they can connect to that bus. But GBAT bus, Franz Sykes said is suggested fare. You get to ride the bus to work whether you have the money or

because it's more important that you are able to maintain a job and be there on time versus worrying about I don't have a I couldn't get to my job because didn't have because I didn't have a dollar. Right. Yeah, that was the fare. So that was a very good partnership that Mayor Kelly and Fair and Sikes made to make sure that that happened. And we're looking to see if we can expand that or

Beacon (28:04.59)
duplicated since she's no longer with us. But constantly working on things that help the population that we have get jobs and be able to be self-sufficient. That's our whole goal, to help these people become self-sufficient. Well, it sounds like, and I'll just say, I have always believed that if...

every person can just touch even one person's life, then that's made it all worthwhile. But you, talk about food, the mobile feeding bus, the first food summit, shelter, village of hope, code blue.

clothing, food shelter clothing, all the things that people so desperately need and you've been on the forefront of all of these projects. is no doubt in my mind as to why you are a recipient of this Community Hero Award. And once again, thank you to your service to our community and congratulations. Thank you so much. To me, it's not a job.

It could be taxing it sometimes, but there's satisfaction in knowing that it should help somebody.

Beacon (29:30.124)
to be in a situation like that. You never want to judge, right? Right. never know. Thank you again and thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. You're so Here on the Bridgeton Beacon. I hope everyone who listens to this episode thinks about maybe one thing that they can do to follow your lead to help those that are in need in our community.

Beacon (30:10.602)
One of the best ways you can support the Bridgestone Beacon is to go to the Bridgeton Beacon YouTube channel and hit subscribe. When you hit subscribe, we're going to need you to also click the little bell icon so that you actually get alerts when we post new episodes. But this is a great way for you to support the Bridgeton Beacon in lieu of an actual donation or monetary support.