- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Making a difference.

NJM Insurance Group.

Serving New Jersey’s drivers, homeowners and business owners for more than 100 years.

PSEG Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

Johnson & Johnson.

PSE&G, powering progress.

Wells Fargo.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

And by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Here when you need us most.

Promotional support provided by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

And by ROI-NJ.

Informing and connecting businesses in New Jersey.

- 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 this program with our longtime friend Bernie Flynn, Chief Executive Officer of a terrific organization called Mercer Street Friends.

The website will be up.

Good to see you, my friend.

- Good to see you, Steve.

- Well, Bernie, you have gone from the corporate community at NJM, a longtime underwriter of public broadcasting to not-for-profit leadership.

When you left the corporate world, was it your game plan to lead such an important nonprofit organization?

- No, Steve, I didn't have a specific game plan.

I knew I wanted to contribute in the nonprofit space, particularly have a role in education, which Mercer Street Friends does.

But I bounced around a little bit.

I took a graduate course in early childhood education.

I consulted with Mercer Street Friends, and I really made a choice between creating my own nonprofit or joining Mercer Street Friends.

And I felt joining Mercer Street Friends and adding value to this organization was the right move.

And I'm so thrilled I did it.

Although I started February of 2020, and then the pandemic hit, so it got a little crazy.

- As the website's up, Mercer Street Friends created 1958.

- Yeah.

- Describe in addition to its food security, education and family support, the primary areas.

- That's it.

- Who is being served, Bernie?

Is it focused largely in Trenton?

- Yeah, the focus is in Trenton, although we serve all of Mercer County with our food mission.

We are the Feeding America Food Bank for Mercer County.

So we're part of a nationwide network and the Community Food Bank of New Jersey functions like a big sister to us.

So they're very supportive and helpful.

But we do the work of a food bank here in Mercer County, which means we're the wholesaler.

We just bought a brand new warehouse and brand new to us.

First time we've owned our warehouse property.

And that will help serve Mercer County for years to come.

But we have a network of over a hundred partners, pantries, soup kitchens, churches, all who distribute the food to the community to ensure, you know, that there is enough nutritious food for everybody in Mercer County.

- How serious is the food insecurity problem in the state, particularly in the Mercer County/Trenton area?

- Well, I have to tell you, Steve, it's been a surprise to me, how, I'll say, rampant food insecurity is.

Across the country, you start with roughly 10% of the population is food insecure.

And we, I thought that-- - Define it, Bernie, I'm so sorry for interrupting.

Define food insecure.

- Those individuals and families that aren't sure where their next meal is coming from.

You know, we don't have.

- They have no idea what, and they're scrambling to put food on the table.

- Think of that stress, Steve, when you're not sure whether you have enough money to feed your kids over the weekend or for the next week.

That's food insecurity and a substantial portion of the population suffers from it.

We can address it.

We can solve this problem.

It will take a lot of time and a lot of partnership between, you know, public and private entities.

But we're on the front lines here and we see a continuing need in the food insecurity space.

I thought that the peak would be in the pandemic.

- Right - During that time.

But the federal supports and the tremendous philanthropy that was energized during the pandemic enabled us to, you know, meet the mission at that time.

And now federal supports are gone.

Inflation is still a problem for those on the margins.

And food insecurity continues to rise in New Jersey, in Mercer County and certainly in Trenton.

- You know, beyond the issue, and I don't know if it's beyond the issue, Bernie, of food insecurity, but education, I mean, kids going to school hungry.

I mean, for those of us who are so blessed, we often take that for granted that our kids have breakfast.

Not the case for way too many kids.

One is too many, which is a cliche, but true.

The organization, the Mercer Street Friends is getting more involved in the Trenton Public schools?

- Yes.

- Talk about that.

- Well, that-- - And why, what is it and why?

- Well, it's really what drew me to Mercer Street Friends.

We are the lead community school agency in the city of Trenton.

And that means that we're an organization that helps remove barriers to learning.

So we are providing resources.

We're a convener and a collaborator.

Plus we have our own staff that are embedded in three schools in Trenton, two elementary and one middle school, where they, our staff partners with the principal and the rest of the staff at the school and brings in reading intervention support.

We do summer programs.

We bring in all sorts of health supports, physical, mental, oral, you know, whatever is needed for the families and the children so that they can focus on learning and enable teachers to do their job.

So there aren't these distractions or the inability to attend school for whatever reason.

Chronic absenteeism is something that we address.

So it's a movement that is nationwide, this community school movement.

And we're one of the leaders in the state of New Jersey, because we don't have a lot of community schools here.

State of California has dedicated four and a half billion dollars to the community school model, four and a half billion.

We haven't dedicated anything yet.

- So there's no money, state government money here.

- There is not.

And that's something that we will be advocating for over time.

It will take a while to make sure that there is sufficient funding for the community school model in underserved areas in the state of New Jersey.

That's one of the reasons I'm here, Steve.

And that it will take a concerted effort and a tremendous coalition to make that happen.

But the community school model is gaining ground and traction across the country.

It's working very effectively in New York State, not just New York City.

And the time has come for the state of New Jersey to start stepping up in that regard.

- Bernie, real quick, I should have asked this at the top of the interview, Mercer Street Friends, Mercer Street, what's the name stand for?

- Yeah.

We were started at 151 Mercer Street in the Mill Hill section of Trenton.

A historic area of Trenton where, you know, Washington won the Battle of Trenton and the Quakers use the 151 Mercer Street as a community center.

And we have evolved over 66 years, but many people think we're a school, while we're focused on education.

You know, and we do have a preschool.

We're a social services organization and we've evolved over time.

And now we're embedded in the space of being the food bank for Mercer County, being the lead community school agency in this city, and also providing family support, over a hundred families.

We, you know, we help.

- Hey Bernie, listen, I said this before we got on the air and I just wanna share this in the appropriate way.

In a previous life when Bernie Flynn was the CEO of New Jersey manufacturers and there was an effort to keep public television alive in the state through our leader of public television, Neal Shapiro, at the WNET group, it was in fact Bernie Flynn is one of the first corporate leaders who stepped up at New Jersey manufacturers to support that initiative and other corporations jumped in.

I wanted to say that, not just for full disclosure, but because it matters, it matters.

- That's it, Bernie.

Thank you my friend.

- Thank you Steve, appreciate it.

And look forward to doing more in the food security space.

You know, and Community Food bank in New Jersey.

- That's right.

- And the other food banks in the Feeding American Network.

- This is not a one-off my friend.

We'll keep the programming going.

Bernie Flynn, Chief Executive Officer, Mercer Street Friends.

Thank you Bernie, appreciate it.

- Okay, thanks 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 Phyllis DiNardi, who's the founder of an organization called We Are Loved.

Phyllis, good to see you.

- Good to see you too, Steve.

- Lemme also say that you're a 2024 Russ Berrie Making a Difference winner.

And we'll explain more about what that award is, Making a Difference.

What is We are Loved and how is it tied to the fact that you have fostered as a foster parent, 48 children as a foster parent?

Please.

- So We Are Loved is a nonprofit that I found after, actually I foster 49 Children.

But who's counting, right?

So the last two girls that I had, the 48th and the 49th were sisters.

And it was founded when I thought I was gonna be their forever home.

But unfortunately things changed and they were returned to their biological mom and we worked hard to make relationship with their biological moms to make sure that they were gonna be safe when they were returned home.

And when we brought them to their home and had them settled in, they did turn to us and they said, "Mrs. D, we're gonna be okay 'cause we know we are loved."

So with that, we took that information and we decided to start our nonprofit because I wasn't willing to give up on the kids in foster care.

I was no longer gonna foster because we moved into an adult community.

But the kids that we did foster and we've seen the potential that they had with some love and structure could do very, very well.

We wanted to continue that journey.

And this is where we are today.

- Phyllis, what exactly does We are Loved do for these children and for foster parents?

- So right now we definitely support them with our Loved bags, which are bags that are given to them when they're transitioning into foster care with new pajamas and hygiene products, stuffed animal, a book or journal.

We noticed that when the children came to our home, we had these items and we were able to give them some new pajamas and wash them up and everything.

They had a great night the first night.

We have support meetings.

We help with training.

We give them holiday boxes to help start traditions in their life.

I have six of my own children and eight grandchildren, and we all have those pajamas that match during the holidays.

And so we have our holiday pajamas with the kids, all sibling groups get the matching pajamas and a blanket and slippers and hot chocolate and cookie mixes.

And again, they're a big hit because a lot of the siblings, foster kids will say, "I've never had matching pajamas with my siblings."

And they get very excited about it.

So we're trying to teach them what tradition is like and have that bond in their family some stuff.

- Phyllis, what needs to be improved in your opinion?

I mean, you're an expert on this, you've lived it, you've practiced it, in the foster care system, dare I use that term, what needs to be improved specifically?

- I think what needs to be improved is the ability for the workers and for the resource parents to be able to listen to the kids, especially the older kids.

We have a tendency, they don't prioritize what the needs of the kids are.

It's all about statistics and numbers and saying, "Oh, we kept these many kids home.

We kept these many kids adopted."

And nobody really listens to what the needs of the kids are.

I mean, a lot of times we say, "Oh, it's great that we kept them with their families.

Oh, it's great that we put them and adopt these kids out."

But we don't really ask the kids what they want and what's best for them.

And it's sad because a lot of these kids are able to say what they want and sometimes it may not be what we think is best for them.

- So Phyllis, let's get into that.

And not every kid is the same, obviously.

What do most children who wind up in the foster care system, what do most of them want and need?

- Well, it depends on what they're given during their time in foster care, right?

So the children that we had in our home, because I had six children and I ran a daycare and everything, I'm very structured, very organized.

So the kids in our home, I guess they wanted to have that kind of a future.

So they wanted to continue to be able to develop that.

They did very well in school.

A lot of them were on the honor roll.

They saw that my children did well in school.

They were in college.

They had nice things.

And I showed them that you can work towards those.

They saw goals were able to be met, right.

- Phyllis, I'm sorry to interrupt, what about the love piece?

- So the love and the structure is super important, right?

But with that, you got, that's why you have to have a lot of structure and consistency, but then like they know that they're being loved.

'Cause if you need though, you have to discipline a child or have structure, you could say no or you have to guide them, that shows them love.

- Phyllis, what do you think is the biggest change in you, biggest impact on you of fostering 49 children, having six of your own, what's the biggest impact this had on you?

- It showed me that I needed to appreciate the smaller things in life and that just being able to change someone's life even in a little way or making a positive impact went a long way.

- What's that feel like?

- It's a great feeling.

It's a wonderful feeling.

Matter of fact, two of my previous foster kids reached out just recently, this past week actually.

One's married with a 3-year-old and one's a senior in college and they're brother and sister actually, and they both appreciated their time with us.

They were with us for several years actually.

And thanked us for what we had helped them and guided them to do.

And we love that.

We love that we know that we made a difference in several children's lives and their future and where they're at today.

- Phyllis, you've made a difference in the lives of so many.

Phyllis DiNardi is the founder of We Are Loved.

And Phyllis, we thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

I appreciate your time, too.

- 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.

- Hi, I'm Jacqui Tricarico, Senior Correspondent for "One-on-One," and I'm so pleased to be joined now by Dr. Adara Goldberg, the Director of the Holocaust Resource Center at Kean University.

Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Goldberg.

- Absolutely, it's my pleasure to be here, thank you.

- So the Holocaust Resource Center was created over 40 years ago by Holocaust survivors living right here in New Jersey.

Describe that time and why and how they created this resource center at Kean University.

- So the center was founded in 1982, so we are now in our 42nd year, by a group of survivors who settled in and around Elizabeth.

And their goal was to create an accessible, free space for Holocaust education for all New Jerseyites, regardless of background, education, economic status.

They truly believed that the only way that they could honor the memory of their lost communities and families was to remember the past, honor the present, and shape the future.

And we do that through education, commemorations, and collections every single day.

- Why Kean University, and in what ways are the staff and students using it, but also, does the outside population have access to it?

- Well, I think the first answer is everybody has access to it.

We are a community site.

We work both on and off the university campus.

Kean was chosen because this was the neighborhood that the survivors chose to establish their new lives in, and they developed a close working relationship with the administration who agreed that Kean as a public institution was the appropriate place for New Jerseyites, again, across all ethno-religious economic groups, to have access to education and remembrance long after the survivors were gone.

And so today, we reach folks in our physical space, located in the Nancy Thompson Learning Commons, as well as in school districts across the state.

Approximately 140 of them work directly with us for graduate classes, undergraduate classes, commemorations, and programming.

- Talk about some of those resources and the tools that are there in the center.

What can people find there?

- So, if people come to visit our center, they will find that we have one of the largest print collections of Holocaust material in the state of New Jersey.

Despite being a school with a smaller population than Rutgers, for instance, we are very proud of our robust collection.

So they would find approximately 8,000 print texts; an original AV oral history collection featuring testimonies from Holocaust survivors, witnesses, and liberators; as well as a really exciting collection we acquired three years ago this month from Josiah DuBois, who was a New Jersey lawyer who was a member of the State Department during World War II, and he was one of the whistle-blowers on America's inaction to respond to the plight of Jewish refugees that ended up helping to create the War Refugee Board.

And so these are just some of the items that folks visiting our site can access right at their fingertips.

- The oral histories, I wanted to talk a little bit more about that because when we're talking about Holocaust survivors and that population that are here, those folks are getting older, and so many of them have died or are a lot older.

So, those oral histories are more important than ever.

How are you making sure that you're still getting those, preserving those, and how important is it to have those accessible and use those tools for teachers and students to learn more about this time in our history?

- So, as resources, as you know, eyewitness accounts, they are invaluable.

Every single one of the testimonies in our collection is fully digitized and available both at the site, as well as through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website.

So this is ensured that people all around the world, and not only in New Jersey or in Union County, can view any of those testimonies at any time of day, night.

They can share it with their families, with their classrooms, with their colleagues.

And so I think there's this piece that as the survivor generation continues to decline, their stories not only provide a lens into thinking about the past, understanding what life was like before the Holocaust, what did people experience during those years of terror, and also how did people rebuild their lives, and particularly, in our case, their lives in New Jersey.

This was a choice they made, and they chose New Jersey because they saw this as a space where they could safely raise a family and begin again.

And so the last oral history testimony we actually collected was two years ago.

A gentleman who had never given testimony before participated in one of our COVID-era Zoom events that was speaking about wartime refugees.

And it was a light-bulb moment, where he realized that his story mattered.

And despite COVID, all of the safety precautions, our team at Kean, with the help of University Relations, managed to create a really exemplary experience for Mr. Goldsmith to record his testimony.

Since then, he unfortunately has passed away, but we have a repository of his archival materials, his testimony and lesson plans that we have created to honor his memory - That oral history lives on, which is so incredible and so important.

I wanted to talk a little bit too about the rise of antisemitism.

We've seen it in New Jersey, across the country, across the nation, especially in the past year.

How are you, at the Holocaust Resource Center, addressing antisemitism and using the resources that you have to really combat prejudice and promote understanding?

- So I would say there's two key ways.

The first is that we have always been proactive.

So we have never waited for a moment where there is a rise in antisemitism, because ultimately there has been a rise in antisemitism.

It's never quite gone down, it's just now that it's more visible.

So we offer a professional development session that we bring into schools across the state that addresses antisemitism, bias crimes, as well as the role of social media in influencing young people and their beliefs to make responsible decisions and use critical thinking.

But the main tool comes through our Graduate Program.

We offer the state's only tuition-waived Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in teaching the Holocaust and Prejudice Reduction.

More than 6,000 New Jersey teachers have been trained by this two-year program, and these teachers come in and they have four semesters to really delve into the history of the Holocaust, consider historic antisemitism, its manifestations today, and connect it to real-world problems and other forms of prejudice because they are the ones who are responsible for helping to educate the next generations.

- I know one of those teachers, Joseph Nappi, last year's New Jersey State Teacher of the Year, went through that programming and was really recognized for what he's doing in his classroom in regards to that.

Lastly, Dr. Goldberg, this is such important work.

What has it done for you personally?

- This is my life's work.

Some people speak about what they do as a job.

For me, it is so far beyond a vocation.

It is what I feel like I was brought into this world to remember those survivors, to shed light on their stories, the voices of those who could not speak for themselves.

I like to think that I am an adequate stand-in for a person.

I truly believe in the work that we do, and I truly believe that the commitment of Kean University and the Holocaust Resource Foundation, which supports our work, is changing the future for all of the hate that we see every single day.

When we turn on our TVs, we open up our phones, I can tell you that Holocaust Resource Center is a bastion of peace and inclusivity, and we are trying to be that brave space and safe space that people need right now more than ever.

- Definitely, thank you so much for the work that you and your colleagues are doing there, and thank you for joining us to give us more information about the important resources available at the Holocaust Resource Center at Kean University.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- We thank you so much for watching, we’ll see you next time.

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

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

NJM Insurance Group.

PSEG Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

Johnson & Johnson.

PSE&G, Wells Fargo.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

And by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Promotional support provided by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

And by ROI-NJ.