- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Here when you need us most.

PSEG Foundation.

Kean University.

Where Cougars climb higher.

Holy Name.

This place is different.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

PSE&G, committed to providing safe, reliable energy now and in the future.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Working for a more a healthier, more equitable New Jersey.

And by The Fidelco Group.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it'’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

-_ It'’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it'’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with Andrea Steinberg, Chief Executive Officer of Jewish Family Service of Atlantic and Cape May Counties.

Andrea, good to see you.

- Good to see you as well, Steve.

- As we put up the website of your organization, tell us about the work you do and the people you serve.

- So, Jewish Family Service of Atlantic and Cape May Counties is really situated in mostly Atlantic County, but reaching out into Cape May County with an additional office in Cape May.

We have six offices all together and we work to motivate and empower people to realize their potential to achieve their personal goals and enhance the quality of life through a wide range of programming.

We have about 30 program areas and we serve people regardless of their religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, or background.

- So the name Jewish Family Service is not meant to imply that you only serve those in the Jewish community.

- Not at all.

So we were established in the early 1900s to serve the Jewish community, primarily older adults, people that were immigrating to the country at that time, but quickly became a go-to agency for all people, primarily people who were low income populations trying to acclimate to a community, any community.

And now we've become a very large organization compared to what we were once in the 1900s, which, early 1900s, which was a volunteer organization.

We now have 180 employees and we're serving about 13,000 people a year.

- Andrea talk about the issue of, the challenge of mental health, there, obviously, there are more and more, I don't even know if there are more cases or more people dealing with mental health issues but there's more attention being given and the need seems greater than ever.

What does your organization do to help those who are struggling dealing with mental health issues?

- Well, let me start by saying, you know, for us it's a little bit of a silver lining of the pandemic.

So we have always served people in need of support around mental health concerns and now everybody, based on the pandemic, is more aware of it.

And so it has illuminated the issue and allowed people to access or even consider accessing help more readily.

So we are now, you know, upping our game in that arena and making sure that those services exist for anybody that needs to access them.

And currently we're able to do that both in-person as well as remotely.

So people who have barriers, continue to have barriers, based on their health or transportation or whatever it may be, we can still serve from their homes.

And we serve from the very young to the very old so toddlers all the way up into older adults.

And we have specialized treatment for people, particularly those that are exposed to trauma in their lives.

- Government funding, you receive government funding?

- So we do receive government funding as it relates to mental health and outpatient services.

We accept Medicare, Medicaid, which are our government funding sources as well as private insurance.

And we do have a sliding scale when we have funding that allows us to offset for people that are uninsured or underinsured.

We do have other government funding for other mental health programs that are more case management related.

So we do support people in the community who live independently, who may have otherwise been living in a hospital or been incarcerated.

So we provide case management services and that is through government funding.

- Corporate and foundation support, because we're a nonprofit, you're a nonprofit, we spend a significant amount of our time raising money.

You do as well.

- We do.

And it is a complex woven budget, I will say.

We work really hard to assure that all of our services continue at the level and I will tell you the level increases each time something happens in our community, so for example, Superstorm Sandy, economic downturn, now pandemic.

Our county, particularly Atlantic County, which is so reliant on the hospitality industry just takes that much longer to recover.

So we work really hard every day to raise dollars whatever that looks like, private individual, foundations, government, and weave it together to assure services can continue.

- Hmm, the other area that really struck me that you and your colleagues are involved in is prisoner reentry.

I mean, people moving from being incarcerated back into the community.

We've done a lot of programming in that regard and it strikes me that it, we're not doing enough to help those who are trying to reenter society from being incarcerated.

Talk about the work that you're doing in that area.

- Yeah, so we are actually situated at the jail in Mays Landing, which is in Atlantic County.

So anybody who is reentering community, our staff meets with and works with them to reenter successfully and with the hopes of not finding themselves back in the jail.

And that can look all different ways.

So somebody might need help because they would otherwise be homeless or they maybe have barriers to employment or challenges with addiction.

So we wrap services around based on what their individual needs are and work to assure that they can live more stable lives in the community.

And I would agree, a lot more work needs to be done in that area.

We've been at it a long time and I'm really proud of the work that we do.

We also co-respond with police in the hopes of being able to not have people end up in jail or prison, but really to get the help they need on the front end and not have to go through the system and then people are much more successful.

- Andrea, we'll put up the website we've been doing throughout this segment.

If people reach out, how accessible are these services?

- So I will say we have somebody answering the phone every business day, which I'm really pleased to be able to continue to do because you don't always get somebody when you reach out.

So we have two full-time people in our access center responding to phone calls and they will connect people to the service.

Often people don't know the service that they need.

They can describe what's going on with them.

And we are really adept at helping them connect both within JFS but also throughout the community because we may not have every service that somebody needs.

Inevitably somebody who, for example, may call for food, which we have a food pantry here onsite, 70% of those people are then connected to another service of JFS.

So as I said, people don't always know all of what they need or how do I identify the program but we'll do that with them.

- Andrea, thank you.

You and your colleagues, you're doing important work every day.

We appreciate your efforts and that's why I wanted to share the information about your organization, particularly those and we're based in northern New Jersey.

You're in the southern part of the state.

We wanna make sure people are aware of who you are and what you do and to make a difference.

Thanks so much, Andrea.

- We appreciate that.

Thank you, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- We're now joined by Nicole Johnson, deputy superintendent of Newark Board of Education, and Argetina Aquino, who is a mother of three, and a parent liaison for a fascinating initiative called Newark Parent University.

I wanna thank both of you for joining us.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- Nicole, if you could, talk about what is North Parent University?

As we put up the website for people to find out more, please.

- We know at the district level, that engaging parents is a top priority at the federal, the state, and the local level.

And so in 2020, we launched our "The Next Decade Strategic Plan," which is in its three year of implementation right now.

There are six priorities and 35 strategies in our plan with parents and stakeholders being sort of the top priority.

We use title funds and local funds to expand our initiatives because throughout the pandemic, there was this heightened engagement and awareness of curriculum and teaching on the part of parents, and rightfully so, because in many instances, they were the teacher at home.

And so in 2020, we launched the Parent University.

It started as two sessions or two workshops per year in the fall and in the spring where we asked district staff, community partners to provide workshops for our families.

It has since evolved into this system-wide learning platform that has online courses, live courses, recorded courses on various topics.

And so we're really proud of that work and we've seen the impact, as Ms. Aquino will talk about as one of our parent liaisons, but it's something that we hope to continue and that's constantly evolving in our district in terms of how we engage our parents.

- Argetina, why did you get involved with as a Newark, excuse me, as a parent liaison with Newark Parent University?

Why'd you do that?

- Because I work at First Avenue School.

I'm a parent liaison at First Avenue School.

And as a district, we are lucky that every school has a parent liaison.

And we know how important it is having parent engaged in the child's academic learning.

The Parent University is a very important tool in how I do my job and how can I better serve the community, for being an online platform, where there are workshops, there are resources, there are a lot of information that equip parents with necessary information that they need to support their children.

I can say, it is a very great bridge, that it makes my job as a parent liaison much easier, by having, for instance, last week, we had a workshop.

So there are a lot of workshops in various topics, immigration- - Like?

- Like immigration like child abuse prevention workshops, health and wellness, you name it.

Like, bilingual workshops, how to support families that they have bilingual child, how to find resources.

And there are times where I can, not every time I have a person that will come to speak to my school, therefore, I go to Parent University and I choose a topic.

- Sure.

- I have parents coming and it provides a platform that makes my job easy to give information to parents.

- So Nicole, in many ways, it's a resource for parents and also what I saw here is one of the services which I particularly am in need of is math homework tutorials.

Please, Nicole, Ms. Johnson, talk about that because some of us are sitting here, "How do we help?"

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Go ahead.

- So again, for Parent University, not only do we use community partners for our workshops, but we use actual district staff.

So we use our math directors, our literacy directors, director of the office of bilingual education, special education.

And so, based on feedback from parents and surveys that we actually give them to ask, "Hey you know, what are you interested in learning more about?"

We then bring together our directors and say, here are some of the topics, or here are some of the sessions that parents have asked for.

They wanna know, how to help at home.

how to read with their child at home, how to fill out a lunch application.

We had a session on just how to fill out the lunch application and it's also recorded so if you miss it, you can log into Parent University and you can watch the 40-minute video on how to fill out the lunch application, how to fill out the Newark Enrolls application, post-secondary, what to expect after high school.

And so we have all these different workshops.

Some are live, some are recorded, but at any time you could log in as a parent and watch any of the videos at any time.

- Nicole, let me ask you this, is there any reason why this couldn't or shouldn't or wouldn't be a national model?

Parent University?

- Yeah, well, it's interesting you asked that because a few months ago, I, myself, was asked to speak by the US Department of Ed to talk about Parent University and what we're doing in our district as it relates to post-pandemic and really trying to engage parents and pretty much teach them like how to help us with their child.

And so I was asked to speak to a number of superintendents across the nation on how we used our funds, how we used local funds and federal funds for Parent University and what does that look like.

The other thing I wanna add though, so Parent University, yes, it's the online sort of platform piece which is one resource.

- Right.

- But what I said during that meeting with the US Department of Ed was, there's so many other facets, right?

So there are the parent liaisons.

The district has invested in a parent liaison at every single school and we have over 60 schools.

And that parent liaison, their role is to sort of be the liaison between the community and the school administration, right?

The second thing- - That's what Ms. Aquino does?

- That's what Ms. Aquino does, yes.

- Okay, just finish your point.

We've got about a minute left so finish your point, Nicole, I'm sorry.

- The second thing that superintendent also added since post-pandemic was the Superintendent's Council of Parents.

And he meets with these parents every other month.

- The superintendent, Roger Leon?

- Yes.

Yes.

Our superintendent, Roger Leon, meets with the Superintendent Council of Parents.

Those are our parent liaisons, our PTO leaders and other parents.

So it's really, how do we engage them on all levels.

- Real quick, before I let you go, Argetina, if you could, real quickly, how has it helped you be a better parent to your three children?

- One of the most fascinating things that Parent University gives is resources and information.

We all know that knowledge is a treasure that we will take forever, wherever we go.

And that is what Parent University is.

It gives us knowledge, empower us to use with the tools necessary so we can not only better serve us, but serve our children as well.

- Well said.

Newark Parent University.

Nicole, Argetina, I wanna thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Bye.

- You got it.

Stay with us, folks.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Everything you wanted or needed to know about food trucks, here we go.

We got the expert in the house.

Vinny Parisi, editor-in-chief of BestofNJ.com, one of our media partners, and also a co-author of the book "The New Jersey Food Truck Cookbook."

Vinny, how are we doing, buddy?

- I'm doing fantastic, Steve, how are you?

- I'm doing great.

Hey, listen.

Food trucks, bigger in New Jersey than in most places, man?

- I would say so for sure, yeah.

- Why?

- Well, I mean, one of the original food trucks was in Rutgers.

They started off, they were called Fat Trucks and that sort of kicked off this idea of mobile eatery.

And since then it's expanded exponentially to, really, food trucks every weekend, from March through October.

- It's interesting you talk about Rutgers, 'cause back in the day as a graduate student at Rutgers, all along George Street, right on the main campus, there were food trucks.

Those are the food trucks you're talking about, right?

- It's the same idea, yes.

Guys that are cooking, guys and girls cooking right out of their truck, producing all sorts of cuisine.

- So have food trucks become more sophisticated, Vin?

- Oh yeah, for sure.

I mean, you can get just about anything on a food truck now, from a gourmet sandwich or a gourmet meal, to high-quality desserts.

- So let's go through some of these, and before we do that, why this book?

- (chuckles) Well, I mean, I love food and I love New Jersey and food trucks in New Jersey are really hot right now.

They're great local businesses.

They get to travel all throughout the state.

Like I said, there's a lot of food truck festivals every weekend and they're great family outings.

So it was a perfect pairing for Best of NJ to do a book that promotes these great family activities while supporting the local businesses that run them and produce the food.

- What do you mean from "food truck festivals"?

What kind of festival?

- Yeah, so typically a food truck festival is a scenario where you go to either a park or sometimes a venue, and there's anywhere from a dozen to 20 or so food trucks and they pair that with live music, sometimes they pair it with a beer expo.

And it's a place where families can go and sample a variety of foods.

Every food truck, like I said, typically has a different cuisine, from tacos to cheesecake to pizza.

And you can go, there's a lot of family activities, anything from face painting for kids to giant Jenga.

It's really just a day out.

- By the way, this is part of an ongoing series.

We always come up with these series, Georgette Timoney, our executive producer, we're always brainstorming, "Hey, how about a series?"

And the series is called "Food for Thought."

This is one of the first segments we're doing under "Food for Thought," you'll see a graphic.

Trust me, we will limit the number of miniseries.

But what I'm curious about is this, what was the movie, I think it was a John Favreau, help me on this, do you know the movie that his dream was to start a food truck?

Do you know the one I'm talking about?

- Ooh, no.

- Okay, no, someone search it and put it in the chat.

But what struck me is his dream was to have a food truck.

And the reason I'm bringing it up, Vin, is it strikes me that those who have food trucks, who start food trucks, their passion, and that was the whole thing about Favreau in the movie is passion was so into, the movie, thank you, the movie's called "Chef."

Thank you, Aimee and Georgette.

Check out that movie, it's a great movie.

I think we saw it at the Montclair Film Festival that kicked it off, it was great.

Question.

How much passion do you have to have to run a food truck?

- You have to have a ton of passion.

That's actually one of the reasons we wanted to do this book, right?

'Cause every good book starts with a story and every food truck owner has a fantastic story.

A lot of 'em don't come from the food space.

They start out working on Wall Street or being an accountant or something completely out of the space.

And they typically encounter a food truck at an event or something for the first time, and they're inspired to start this business.

They find a passion for it.

It's not easy to operate a food truck.

In many cases, it's more difficult than a restaurant.

- Why?

- A lot of work goes into it.

You have to be constantly getting approval from different towns to travel, but also the cleanliness and the maintenance of the truck is a lot more difficult.

You know, they have to get, basically they're getting audited or inspected on a regular basis to make sure their equipment is up to snuff, to make sure the food truck itself is clean, the food is well prepared, all that kind of stuff.

So you really have to love this job to do it.

It takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of passion.

- We're gonna run some pictures of some of the food trucks you picked.

Down at the Jersey Shore, there's Five Sisters Food Company.

- Yeah.

- Talk about it.

- Yeah, Five Sisters is a great company.

So the name says it all.

It was started by a mother and a father, but they have five daughters and the truck has been in operation for long enough now that the girls have all grown up to an extent that they're all working on the truck.

In fact, the two oldest daughters, they really run the truck now and their parents oversee it.

- They're in the Jersey Shore, down Jersey Shore?

- Yes, that's correct.

I mean, they travel, but they're primarily in the Jersey Shore.

- Okay, and you picked one at the Jersey Shore, one in Central Jersey, and one in North Jersey.

In Central Jersey, you got Big John's Gourmet Burgers.

Talk about it.

- Yeah, so Big John, Jonathan Anderson is his name.

He's got a great story too.

He used to work for Time Magazine and so he was in the city on Sixth Avenue looking out his window every day and he'd see food trucks pull up outside of Sixth Avenue and he'd say, "Hey, those guys always have a long line.

They must make a lot of money."

And eventually Time Magazine dissolved and he was looking for work and he thought, "I love burgers, I'm inspired by these food trucks, I want to give it a shot."

And Big John's Gourmet Burgers was born.

- Where are they in Central Jersey, do you know?

- Well, they travel, so a lot of these food trucks don't have a stationary position.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah, they go out to all different events.

Every weekend, they're on the road somewhere.

- So it's not this, see, I was talking before we got on the air that, and I was betting that you would know this, man.

This is not a food truck, per se, but it's a hotdog truck.

The hotdog truck in my old neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey.

Please tell me you know Tony Dogs?

- Yes.

- Okay, I just wanted to make sure.

And Tony Dogs, the best hotdogs out of a hotdog truck anywhere in the state?

Just confirming.

- I don't know, Callahan's is pretty good too, but they're (chuckles) in the top two.

(laughs) - All right, I liked it until then.

No, but Tony Dogs is a classic.

And Tony started, 1964 they opened up, and countless people go there.

It's by Branch Brook Park by Park Avenue.

Check it out, folks.

Even though we don't do commercials here on public television.

How about Ms. Fu's Yummy Food Truck in Northern New Jersey?

What's this about?

- Yeah, another great story.

So Fumiji is her name.

She's from Japan and she didn't really feel like she fit into the traditional career paths that they offered her in Japan, so she came to America looking to do something different.

Her primary job was as a financial advisor, she's a CPA, but she also is a food lover.

And she got started with her truck, her story is she used to prepare the meals for her son and his friends for gatherings.

And everybody loved the food, so she kind of became the default chef and provider for every special occasion, which eventually led to her starting her own food truck.

And it's a great fusion of Japanese food, Korean food, Chinese food, and even some wild American twists like cheesesteaks.

It's really just about all the foods she loves herself.

- I love it, hey, Vin, do us a favor.

Let everyone know what BestofNJ.com is all about.

- I mean, it's the best place you can go to find local businesses, local events.

What we do is promote local businesses primarily, so both new businesses, and what we're most famous for is our Best-Of lists, which cover the spectrum of categories from food to services, we do lists of the best spas, the best steakhouses, the best barbecue.

Basically, we're a one-stop shop to go for things to do in New Jersey and the best businesses to visit.

- And is it true that you were picking the best nightly talk show and "One-on-One" came up?

- Number one, at the top of the list.

- Yeah, I just made that up, that's not true.

(Vinny laughing) Hey, Vin, I'm gonna plug this.

"The New Jersey Food Truck Cookbook."

Hey Vinny, your co-writer here is Pat Lombardi?

- That's correct.

- Who's Pat?

- Well, he's been our photographer for many, many years and also a contributing writer.

We actually started a web series before this was a book, many years, in fact, just called "The Best New Jersey Food Trucks."

And that's where this idea sprang into life.

So Patrick and I have been working together for many years on both content, and he took all the beautiful photos in this book as well.

- Hey, they really are, check it out, folks.

Vinny Parisi, editor-in-chief of Best of NJ, one of our media partners.

Hey Vin, all the best.

- Thank you, Steve, take care.

- Visit a food truck in New Jersey.

I'm Steve Adubato, that's Vinny Parisi.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

PSEG Foundation.

Kean University.

Holy Name.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

PSE&G, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

And by The Fidelco Group.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

- I am alive today thanks to my kidney donor.

I am traveling and more active than ever before.

- I'm alive today thanks to my heart donor.

I'm full of energy and back singing in my church choir.

- I'm alive today thanks to my lung donor.

I'm breathing easy and I'm enjoying life'’s precious moments.

- They are about 4,000 people in New Jersey waiting for a life-saving transplant.

- Donation needs diversity!

- For more information or to become an organ and tissue donor, visit NJSharingNetwork.org.