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[upbeat music] [upbeat music ends] - Good evening, welcome to a special edition of "NJ Spotlight News," I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

For the last year or so, we've had the incredible opportunity to introduce you to a number of people who are giving back to their communities in extraordinary ways, through our digital documentary film series, "21."

The series examines the simple question of does where you live in the state affect how you live?

"21" profiles one person in each of our 21 counties, and looks at the social determinants affecting that person's life.

Well, tonight we introduce you to several more New Jerseyans who are going above and beyond.

First meet Teresa Williams.

She always knew she had a higher calling.

The former executive from Morris County now works tirelessly caring for the working poor looking for ways to amplify their voices, through faith and community service.

But when a fire destroyed her family's home, the community rallied to help her, exemplifying the reality of what you reap is what you sow.

Here's Teresa.

- I started thinking differently just about what I wanted to do, and I always felt like I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing.

I always felt a void, a huge void.

So while I was doing all these things, doing, you know having a pretty good career I always felt like something was empty.

I wanted to be a person to kind of help give that hope, allow others to see their gifts, their strengths, that they are someone.

What's really important to me is for people to know that they're valuable, and they're worthy.

[slow dramatic music] So, graduated from college, very excited.

Had a job offer.

I was really kind of focused inward.

I think that's why I had such a large void.

I don't feel like this is what I was meant to be here for.

So then when I found my husband, we got married, I took some time off, I left the corporate America.

[slow dramatic music] My husband and I have been talking about making a change, to doing something different drastic, 'cause we just felt like the American dream is American nightmare.

It's not an American dream, 'cause you're just stuck in the rat race.

We started seeing things from a different perspective not so much as American dream perspective, as you know, what's gonna really fulfill our life, and how are we gonna leave a legacy?

How are we gonna make a contribution to this world?

We had some opportunities, and one of them was South Africa.

We talked to some individuals [slow dramatic music] who decided to go as missionaries.

So we gave up everything.

It was just life-changing because of that hospitality, because of that joy that we have never experienced, that joy was something I think it was the void that I was talking about.

[slow dramatic music] Throughout Morris County.

You see there's a lot of affluence, but there's also a lot of poverty, and there's a lot of people who are struggling.

So as we observe and we saw these things, we felt like there were certain needs that weren't being met.

So being a part of this community, we tried to advocate for those who can't advocate for themselves.

There are a lot of working poor here in Morris County.

Those are the individuals that we support primarily as well as homeless individuals.

There are definitely a lot of challenges.

Praise the Lord Church, [congregation applauding] this is the day that the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Bethel Church is in Morristown, We're the oldest African American church in Morris County.

You all are amazing.

And we couldn't be standing here, serving this church without you.

I'm humbled and grateful to serve the people here at Bethel, to serve this community.

My assignment every Sunday is to talk about what we're doing in the community, our community outreach.

So we will continue to have distributions here at Morristown up to December 15th.

And those are all the announcements I have.

So I'll leave it up to my husband to do the rest.

Amen.

- Amen.

- [Teresa] How a small church, like Bethel, is bringing all these people together.

I think one of the pieces that's fascinating for people is how do you pull a community together to meet a need?

Hey, we can do this, we can talk to each other.

People of all these different views, opposing views are coming together, and they're hearing each other, and they're talking to each other, and they're working together hand in hand, and they're, you know, dancing together when the music's going, and they're having a blast.

I mean that's to me is what it's about.

Without the church, we wouldn't have Table of Hope.

We're known for Table of Hope where we have our mobile food pantry.

We go out and distribute food throughout Morris County, and as well, we have a soup kitchen.

We serve dinners five nights a week.

But I think it's more than just the services we provide.

You know, we try to help people wherever they are, and meet them where they are, and sometimes food is the first place when we meet them.

We rely on our volunteers heavily.

We have a good turnout of volunteers as always.

- Great, great.

- Our volunteers are on the forefront, very connected.

Develop relationships with the people that come.

The last two years we served about 60,000 people and what we've tried to do is support smaller pantries who maybe can't get to food banks as well as pockets of poverty throughout Morris County.

But you want to help improve the quality of life for families.

I just want people to know that there are people who care and see them, [upbeat music] and I want them to know that they're worth something - Straight in from God.

Table of Hope, straight blessing from above.

- You know, I know from personal experience.

It's not easy to declare the good, that God is good all the time.

You know, I don't know about you but I'm sure life has hit you in such way where you've doubted God's goodness all the time.

But we remember the testimony of Jesus, that He died and resurrected on the third day, and because of His sacrifice, we can declare, surely, God, you are good all the time.

[birds chirping] [slow dramatic music] [siren wailing] [footsteps thudding] And this was my son's room over here.

So I ran over here and got him.

[slow dramatic music continues] All of our clothes, that was our closet, and this was our bathroom.

So all of that just got, just was destroyed in the fire.

Destroyed.

[slow dramatic music] About a month and a half ago, we had, the second floor of our home was destroyed.

My husband, myself and my son, we made it out just in time.

Praise God.

We were just overwhelmed by the firefighters, by the police department, by the sheriff's department, by the Red Cross, and everyone who came, while we were just standing outside in our pajamas.

The firefighters were so kind, the police were so kind, we were just overwhelmed.

Even though we were in a total state of trauma, we were met with so much love.

Several weeks later, as a part of our food distribution, we collect turkeys, and at that event, the same firefighters, the same police officers, and the sheriff's department, they were there actually giving, putting the turkeys in our trucks.

So they were providing that service, and not only are they serving us through their line of work, but then they're serving us in the community efforts.

When you work for the community, when you serve others, you have no expectation to get anything back, because that's not what you're doing it for.

But the fact that we got so much love back when we were in a crisis is overwhelming.

And it's, it's a blessing [laughs].

[slow dramatic music continues] A local contractor came in, and he did all this work, and didn't charge, like gutted it, cleaned it out, you know, it was a lot to clean out obviously, because the church did not have insurance.

Now we're in the fundraising process, because the idea is we're actually gonna make this a recovery house for men, it's not gonna be parsonage anymore.

It's a big house, you know, and we feel like it could be better utilized doing ministry.

It still seems surreal., like did this really happen?

Like wow.

If I think about too much, and I'm gonna break down, so [laughs].

- For us as a family, you know, we endured a fire.

We endured a fire, and we thank you all for your prayers, and fraternity's support, through our church members' support.

We preach it all the time and we know that all things work together for the good of love God called to His purpose.

We lost a lot, Amen.

[congregation applauding] But it's working for our good.

[slow dramatic music] - When you are giving to others, you're serving God.

We're not here for ourselves.

We're here to be a blessing to others.

So in doing extra service and trying to support others when they're broken, they're hurt, they're lost.

I think that is something that's really near, and dear, important.

When I'm engaging I just wanna make sure they have a smile, and they get, you know, God bless you or you know, have a great day, or they just have something positive, and it's not just, here, take this, you know, and go home.

It's more like, Hey, we're glad you're here, and we want you to feel good that you're here.

What keeps me going?

The fact that hopefully we're having a small impact here.

I love this community.

[slow dramatic music continues] I think it's a great community, and I think that keeps me excited just working in this community and my family.

Our primary objective is that what we're doing just continues.

No matter whether it's Teresa or Cindy, we want this to be self-sustaining 'cause we want to continue to make sure the community's being served.

Thank you so much everyone.

Thank you.

[slow dramatic music ends] - Next we take you down to Mercer County, and our state capitol where Stacey Ross never turns her phone off, because each call she gets is life or death but also one step closer to helping someone on the other end into recovery.

Following a lifelong battle with addiction, she's now a peer recovery specialist after getting sober at 44 years old, and is committed to helping others do the same, here's Stacey.

[uptempo dramatic music] - It's hard to find someone that isn't affected by the disease of addiction.

I didn't choose this job.

I believe it chose me.

I believe it is my purpose.

Thank you though, thank you.

I just try to do things from my heart.

It's just the best feeling in the world to just help another person.

[uptempo dramatic music continues] I am a certified Peer Recovery Specialist and I'm a person in long-term recovery.

I struggled most of my life with the disease of substance use.

My parents divorced when I was about 12 years old.

I suffered extreme trauma during that time that I didn't want to talk about with anyone.

Here I am, you know, getting drunk on the weekends, and not really realizing that it was an issue.

I just thought I drank too much, and other drugs came in, like cocaine, I went away to college.

I tried, and I dropped out.

You know, from that point on is when everything started falling apart.

I didn't know that I could get help, and that I could have someone help me figure out what was going on with me.

Over the years, things would be okay for a little bit and then they would get worse again.

When I was in my 30s, I was diagnosed with something called lupus which is very painful autoimmune disorder, and I was prescribed Percocet.

Before I even realized that I was completely addicted to this prescription medication.

I went into 12 step meetings, I met a lot of good people, and I've had many suicide attempt.

We have a lot of services.

It's just when you're in the midst of addiction, you don't realize all these things are available to you.

This is like the Boulevard of Broken Dreams for me, and this is the boulevard of, you know- - Restored life.

- Restored life.

I've been in Trenton for almost 52 years, and growing up but using for most of my life on these streets.

- [Speaker 1] Hey, yo!

- And there's the yo's here.

- Yup.

- Every time I would hear that word, it would be, What is it, what have you got?

[train wheels clanking] This is the methadone clinic that I was on for six years, and every morning my father would get up at about four, 4:30 in the morning to get me here by 5:00 AM.

[siren wailing] Just brings up feelings of my father [sobs].

I spent a lot of time with him here, and it's a shame it wasn't something positive, it was sitting in this parking lot.

But my dad always showed up for me, and tried to protect me the best that he could.

[upbeat music] I prayed and I said, please either take me, or help me figure out a way how to get better.

And one of my friends called me up, and I went to a meeting, and I've never looked back from that point, and I finally found out what my purpose was after all these years, and why I didn't stop using until I was 44 years old.

I ended up getting another recovery job with Mercer Council.

I love what I do.

A day at a time I live this wonderful, amazing life with struggles, with challenges, and I do not pick up a drinker, a drug to deal with any of them, which is truly a miracle.

My father got to see me sober for six and a half years before he passed.

I worked really hard at maintaining my sobriety by doing a lot of service work in the community in Mercer County and surrounding areas.

Opioids are taking so many lives from us especially in this community.

You know, I have been to probably over, well over 50 funerals in the five years that I've been doing this work we need all the help we can get.

- So looking at 50 bags and at least 25 Narcan kits to be distributed at the event as well.

- I would bring probably 30.

- Okay, 30 it is.

- Okay, one of the new standard Narcan kits.

Couple years ago with the increase in fentanyl, they had to increase the strength of the dosing from two milligrams to four milligrams, because two milligrams were not bringing people back.

The more access points we have to clients the better chance we have of getting them help.

- Absolutely.

My day is basically from, you know, I start boots on the ground at about eight in the morning.

I start moving, and I go until sometimes 10, 11 at night, and then beyond, because we get calls at all hours.

You know, the disease doesn't sleep, so sometimes we don't get a lot of sleep either.

The care program was started by Scott Kivet with the Robbinsville Police Department.

So what happens when somebody is arrested with a substance use charge?

We get called out by one of the officers, we go in there we meet them where they're at, we try to set up a treatment plan for them.

They know they can't arrest their way out of this disease.

- When we do these care cases, we'll bring 'em in a clean setting, in a private room, where they don't feel like they're in a jail cell.

You need somebody that has been through the situation, that understands what dope sick feels like.

So we bring people, and they talk to 'em," they say, "Hey, here's a private setting.

I'm out of the picture now, I'm passing you the ball now slam dunk it pretty much, you know what I mean?

And that's what we do.

- [Stacey] It's gonna be our office for the Opioid Overdose Response Team.

- Why it's so helpful to have you guys right here in the police station, because you're able to do those intakes and that outreach, you know, right here as people are coming in, you know for whatever services and resources they might need.

- It takes a village to help the City of Trenton.

It really will take a village to have everybody come together, start trusting the relationship between the officers and people that are suffering with substance use.

I just think it's, it's really important, and it's a game changer for the City of Trenton 'cause a lot of people get forgotten about on the streets, and they feel like there's no hope, and there's no one to help them.

[slow dramatic music] What I love about being a Peer Recovery Specialist is we get to sit down face-to-face with a person who is exactly, no different than I am, and we get to talk to them about some of the struggles that we have been through.

I know that it is just a judgment-free zone.

They feel very comfortable.

You hang with my girl, you guys hang together.

You know I let them know that I've been through some pretty hard things in life, and I've gotten to the other side of it.

So it gives them some hope that they can get to the other side of it as well.

We got socks, do you need socks too?

- We got socks.

- Oh you got, okay, perfect.

I was a toast to Trenton till I wasn't 'cause that runs out.

- Yeah, for real?

- Yeah, yeah.

That's why my kidneys failed.

That's why I miscarried a child.

That's why, you know, I think I'm living large but you know, all I'm doing is losing.

- [Caller] So do you wanna come today?

- Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow would be good.

Yeah, could she do 11 o'clock tomorrow?

Call me at 10, and we'll get you a lift.

All right sweetheart, you hang in there, all right?

Yeah.

So have a seat here.

- Yeah, yeah, I definitely wanna try to get in somewhere - Yeah, well, you know, I'm always here no matter what.

No matter what.

This girl has the biggest piece of my heart You know, there's so many different options for treatment.

So we just see what they're willing to do, and we kind of help them get on that pathway.

They ask me to run a couple houses for a non-profit that does sober living.

So I voluntarily give my time to two houses that have six females in each house.

So I get to mentor them, I get to show them that, you know, they are worth something.

They have a purpose on this Earth.

So let's talk about what's going on in the house with the girls.

- The beds have been great.

You know, the house is in order.

They have everything going up that they need for the food shopping list, and the manager's gonna take care of that.

The renters was up there.

Everything's been good so far.

- We have, our two men's houses are filled, and our Burlington Women's house is filled, and we have so many success stories and we have some, you know, we have some tragic things too, but for the most part our success stories make it all worthwhile.

A lot of good with sobriety, a lot of good recovery.

- Laura went through this house.

She was here for a little over two years.

- I was, yeah, when this house first opened I moved in the second day that this house opened.

I've been in and outta sober living for 20 years, you know, and this is the one house.

It's the accountability, but it's more than that.

It's like you develop a support network.

It's the last step before independent living.

And that's exactly what this did, it gave me enough time to start to work, to start to save money, to begin paying off wreckage of my past, and just start to work back into society.

- Our door's always open when people are ready for this next step.

And, you know, it's absolutely changed my life.

So I've lived in Mercer County for almost 52 years.

I love Mercer County.

I've tried to leave, and it always draws me back in.

[slow dramatic music] You know, I like to give back to the community of Trenton, because they're such an underserved population.

Community is so important for recovery, because I can't do this by myself.

We need the whole community involved.

One size does not fit all and we have to come up with different ways for people to feel like they are getting some sort of help.

So I believe that as a community as a whole we need to start talking about this more, and not stigmatizing it.

My first thought is what can I do for someone else?

And coming from the most selfish person that was ever created, that is a huge miracle.

So I do these things because not for notoriety, not for a pat on the back, I do it because if I can help one person believe that they are worth it, and that they do have a purpose it's the reason I do what I do every single day.

- Now to Somerset County where the quality of life for one and a half million people in New Jersey starts upstream with Cindy Ehrenclou, she's the executive director of Raritan Headwaters.

She envisions a future where clean water is accessible to all, engaging members of her community, and arming them with education and tools to protect this critical resource.

She sat down with me to talk about her efforts.

Cindy, I want to ask you about the time that you moved away from New Jersey to the Midwest, and then came back.

Why was that pivotal to your role in conservation now?

- Hmm, well, of course I grew up in this beautiful part of Somerset Hills along the North Branch with my playground, Meadows and Woods.

And I left, of course to go to college, and then I had a short stint in Manhattan, and I moved to the Midwest for almost, or a little over a decade.

So I returned in the mid-'80s, and there was a lot of change.

78 had been completed.

The pharmaceutical and communications companies had moved out and there was a lot of new development, which was a bit of a shock.

- Yeah, and so is that what really propelled you into becoming interested in conservation?

- Yes, you know, I was always an outdoorsy person, you know, I loved everything about nature but the change really was a wake up call.

I really thought it was time to get involved.

I began volunteering at Raritan headquarters which was the upper watershed in the South Branch at one time.

But I got started there on a volunteer basis, and just got completely passionate about their mission, and luckily started working there.

- A lot of, of your work has to do with helping people understand the connection between what they do in their own home and the water that we all drink.

Why is that so key to this for you?

- Oh, well, it's key because everybody plays a role in protecting the health of the environment.

And so the education and outreach, and really engaging citizens, and arming them with information, from children to adults, we can all make a difference.

And, and we do things in our backyards, and in our households that really, we don't mean to, but sometimes we're posing a threat to the water quality or the land, and I think the education really does wake up people, and they understand that there are different ways to do things, and do things in a more organic and wholesome way with that understanding that everything you do on the land ends up in the water.

- What's your vision for what you want to achieve not just for your hometown, for your slice of land, but for the state and the environment as a whole?

- Well, that's a big question.

I mean, I have a personal vision connected to where I am working that all the water, all the waters streams, and the drinking water that comes from our wells is pristine, and that we are really a model watershed organization for the rest of the country.

But I would really hope that people embrace the idea that our climate is changing, and that we really need, this is the time to step up for the future, we're behind.

I think we have to be very proactive, and a very educated and thoughtful citizenship would really help turn things around.

- Cindy Ehrenclou, thanks for the work that you're doing, and for being a part of our "21" series.

- Well, thank you, I'm very proud to be a part of it.

Thank you.

- [Brianna] You can experience Cindy's full documentary, and some of the other extraordinary Jersey residents profiled in the "21" film series at mynjpbs.org/21.

Take a look [upbeat music] - [Narrator 1] New Jersey, we are the Garden State.

We should elevate that.

What that means is you have to get more involved.

It just feels incredible.

[upbeat music continues] - [Narrator 2] How do you say I really don't feel like doing that, that that's impossible.

- [Narrator 3] It's not about me, it's not about no individual, it's about all of us.

[upbeat music ends] - And that's gonna do it for us tonight.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi, for all of us here at "NJ Spotlight News."

Thanks for being with us, have a great weekend.

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Major funding for the "21" Film Series is in part provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Additional funding is provided by the PSEG Foundation.

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