"If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation
is bound up with mine, then let us walk together."
These words from an aboriginal, Australian woman, reflect All Saints Episcopal Community Service and Development
Corporation¹s mission in Hoboken¹s Public Housing. By creating relationships of mutuality between individuals
in our city¹s middle class and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, ASECSDC presents an alternative to
the traditional model of outreach in which outside specialists offer services to clients who passively receive.
Over the last three years, ASECSDC has identified potential leaders and trained dozens of women residing in Hoboken
ís public housing to become community leaders. The development of these leaders has resulted in a wide array
of collaborations between the economically and culturally diverse city of Hoboken, including:
 Acquiring zoning approval to build the
Jubilee Family Life Center on a vacant lot in the neighborhood of Hoboken¹s public housing. The Center will
offer one stop family support for welfare recipients by providing job training, day care, and the educational tools
they will need to move from welfare to work.
Creating an alternative to aimlessly wandering
the streets during the summer months for children through the Hoboken Helping Hands Summer Program and the Eagles
Nest Scholarship Fund. Over the last two years these summer initiatives have provided regular, structured, recreational
activities for over 100 children in public housing and have afforded 32 of those children a week of summer camp
away from the city.
Spearheading the first Welfare Reform Hearing
in the state of New Jersey in which ASECSDC leaders testified before political officials about the need for stable
jobs at a living wage with benefits.
Establishing The Homework Club, a five-hour
a day, three day a week after school program designed and run by ASECSDC leaders to create academic mentoring relationships
between older and younger children in public housing.
These and other collaborations have been transformational for Hoboken residents of all backgrounds and ages.
On a hot summer afternoon Sister Norberta and eight-year-old Tawana stood together by the fenced in lot of
6th and Jackson Streets reading Isaiah 62 to a congregation made up of members of Mount Olive Baptist Church, the
Ladies Garment Worker's Union, True Gospel Holiness Pentecostal Church, The Clergy Coalition Shelter for the Homeless
and All Saints Episcopal Parish. The people had come to The Jubilee Family Life Center Ground Blessing from all
corners of the city to see if the rumor was true, to share a dream and lend a hand.
Last Autumn twelve year old Michael Green hung out with friends after school, but not this year. At 3pm Michael
runs from Brandt Middle School to meet his three elementary school charges: William, Cherry, and Jill. As a Homework
Club leader, Michael checks their homework, quizzes their spelling and receives the gift that all people need to
reach their full potential: Michael knows he is needed.
In March of 1998, eighty three year old Catherine Harris, a retired nurse and life long Hoboken resident, found
herself testifying with young mothers from public housing before the zoning board about the need for a Family Life
Center in Hoboken¹s public housing. "Maybe if we do this" she said, "the city of Hoboken will
be a place for all of it¹s citizens."
ASECSC's goal is not to create institutions. ASECSDC is dedicated broadening the meaning of the word "evangelism"
for all the residents of our mile square city.
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