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News 12 Staff

1123spotlightnj2_2024-11-23-09-26-58

Town Clark Community Development Corporation is located on Bayard Street in New Brunswick, Wilhelmina Bryant is the board president, Elizabeth Barro is the board member and fundraising chair, Reverend Susan Kramer Mills is the executive director. And at the end of the last segment, we were talking about a beautiful woman named Barbara Littman. Tell me from Park, you had one more thought. She is very passionate about artwork and she is one of the reasons we started our art auctions that we've had for many years. We collect art that has been generously donated to us by our sponsors in our community. We take the art and we have a silent auction to help raise funds for our all your program, the pantry supplies for the organization. And she's been a big support of us. Her husband named the Barbara Litman House in her honor in her memory after she had passed. That's so sweet. Tell us all about your programs. Uh Well, you know, we, we understand that it takes more than just housing, right? So one of the amazing things that I think that we do is we offer people a time to heal a time to heal, that's critical. And we also have programs that assist them in that manner so that we have counseling, we have uh educational programs, we have things that are financial literacy and not only do we assist the adults, but we understand that Children are affected as well. So when appropriate, we involve them with services so that they too can come through that experience, not scarred and not becoming one people that repeat the experience. So do people know the effect of domestic violence on Children? Yes, the effects are deep. Um I don't wanna interrupt will I mean uh but um is critical that I always say that we help the women first and they're our first prior priority. But the kids need the help too. All the Children that we have in our facility have required iops and uh require extra therapy and that's because of the results of of the the effects of the domestic violence. And it doesn't matter if how old they were or how young they were, even those that are in the womb are born with the stress that the trauma has brought on. So it is critical. We are saving the next generation for not repeating the cycle of domestic violence.

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1123spotlightnj3_subclip_2024-11-23-13-20-17

We're showing you figures about the prevalence of domestic violence nationwide in our country. As you can see there, we are looking at 57% of homeless women and 33% of women. Let's talk about that. We have three ladies from the Town Clock Community Development Corporation in New Brunswick here in studio that are helping Children and women affected by this. They have to be brave to endure what they're going through, don't they? Absolutely Della And the biggest part is that the homelessness, there's not enough affordable, long term programmatic housing for the survivors of domestic violence and their Children. And because they come to us, we are able to help them with the programming by the fundraising that we do. Um And that changes their life. And I'm gonna pass that on to Liz because she knows so much about our fundraising. I've been involved with Town Clock as the fundraising chair since 2018. And we've been very fortunate to have our galas and our events expanding throughout the years. Our last event was the being brave event and evening honoring survivors where we gave awards to community advocates that have been big supporters of our organization or domestic violence in general. And we've been very fortunate with community sponsors. We are always looking for volunteers. You can follow us on social media or go to our website for more details, Town Clock cdc.org. We also have Venmo and feel free to reach out to us if you wanna volunteer or ask questions, take a tour of our facility. We have three fundraisers throughout the year. The art auction which is generally in March or April in New Brunswick. We have a Mother's Day event that is on social media to help raise gift cards for the 11 residents that we're helping at this time and scholarships and scholarships. And then October November, we have our biggest event. The being brave event this year, it was at the Pines Manor. Being brave. Why is that so important as a mantra? I, I think that many times people feel invisible. Yes, they feel invisible. And sometimes when it comes to domestic violence, there's AAA dimension of shame. Um You know, nobody's going to believe me. And I think the scars that you see sometimes on the exterior are the least of it. It's the deep scars that are inside the psychological scars. And that's why it's so important that we offer not just the housing, but we offer the support and the time

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1124spotlightnj4_2024-11-24-08-51-05

Our guests are with the Town Clock Community Development Corporation in New Brunswick, Wilhelmina Bryant is board president Elizabeth Barro is the board member and fundraising chair, Reverend Susan Kramer Mills is the executive director. Let's talk about your need for donations and how you're helping families affected by domestic violence. We need donations all year long. I know most people think that you wanna be generous only around Thanksgiving or only around the holidays, but we can use your support all year long. We provide our residents with everything that they need when they move into the apartments, the towels, the kitchen items, the sheets. We also have a food and clothing pantry for non perishable food items. We provide laundry, detergent, cleaning supplies. We need these items all year long, not just at the holidays. So if you'd like to take a collection, maybe at your community church or your gym or your job, that'd be fantastic. You can follow us on social media, invite your friends to follow us. Go on our website Town Clock, cdc.org. We have a Venmo account. We also have uh continuous sponsors where you can be a, a monthly sponsor through our website, you can donate directly. And then Susan, yeah. So those donations, what we're looking is and what one can see also on our website is that we have, we're expanding the housing facilities that we have offered right now. So we have two projects. One is the Dina's Dwellings project. The second is the Barbara Litman house and the third is right now named only Ed the Ed building project. And we're planning on building seven more units of affordable housing for survivors of domestic violence and their Children inside the Ed Building. Also in that Ed building, there's gonna be uh uh fellowship hall is going to be a space where we can do all of our programming. Our workshops with the ladies, the kitchen is gonna be renovated so that we can have a teaching kitchen so that people can learn how to cook a lot and use food stamps, stuff that you can get. Also pantry, stuff that we have. And then in the basement, we're going to be expanding our food and clothing pantry and make it about four times the size of what it is right now.

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1124spotlightnj5_2024-11-24-09-18-55

Domestic violence is a huge problem nationwide. And here in New Jersey Town Clock Community Development Corporation in New Brunswick is helping Wilhelmina Bryant board president Elizabeth Barro, board member and fundraising chair and Reverend Susan Kramer Mills, executive director are here to tell is how we need to boost awareness of this topic. I think one of the important things about that is knowing that there's not enough housing we know in general, there's not enough housing for people, but this is a very specific group. Ok. That is under served so that we only have at the current time, 10 apartments, 1111 apartments and a house, 11 apartments and a house trying to sell, serve a large group of people. Um And if we can give them the space right where they feel safe, where they can start to uh heal, then they can move forward. They don't have to stay in that situation that they're in. So our hope is to develop even more apartments so that we can serve more people. And even with our 11 apartments and house, we are one of the largest providers. Correct, Susan. Uh so there is a great need you know, uh uh and sometimes it has to start from the ground up. That's how we started from the ground up. And we have developed a model that can be emulated by others. So you don't have to re invent the wheel. What, what you have to do is realize it could be your mother, your sister, your aunt, your best friend. And unfortunately, it might be you that stands in the need of safe affordable housing. So we wanna make you aware today of the importance of supporting us and organizations like us so that we can be that for the people in need. How do you encourage people to come out? Because like you said, it's not as taboo as it used to be, but still more and more people need to come forward. People do call us and ask about housing and um I have to redirect them to the local shelter, domestic violence shelter because they have the staff to deal with like the first responders and that's where people then call for to get um to get analyze, you know, to get advice about how to leave what they need to do and to make sure that they're safe. Um We're not that we're the next step in their journey.

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1124spotlightnj6_2024-11-24-12-32-15

We are talking about domestic violence here in New Jersey and how the Town Clock Community Development Corporation is helping. They are located in New Brunswick, Wilhelmina Bryant, board president Elizabeth Baro, board member and fundraising chair, Reverend Susan Kramer Mills, executive director. How are you all getting the word about, about what you do in that next step of helping those affected? We get on news 12 spotlight on New Jersey. We go to the Optimum Station to get here. Good for you. Um We have speaking segments. We Susan speaks at the churches, the local organizations and then really, once you sit around with your friends and you to, you know the statistics, it's one in three women, one in seven men are survivors of domestic violence. If you bring up the conversation, you'll be surprised that your coworker or your friend says I am a survivor too. And here's my story because I, I've seen it with my circle, my community. Once I started getting involved in this organization, they would say I have a story and I would be shocked because I've, I've known you 20 years. I've never heard the story, but now that I'm involved with this organization. I'm hearing what's happening to them and how do you help them pick up that story and heal themselves, their Children and their lives? So that's really key, right? Um To get them to come in to be a part of a program that offers support um from soup to nuts. Uh We have a case worker, we have a therapeutic counselor all on site. We have workshops that are all under the roof of the facility. So they don't have to go anywhere to go do something. We have art therapy, we have um financial literacy. We have parenting programs. We also have a scholarship program that we fund raise for in the spring time. So that's, that really helps them go back and get further education so that they can get better jobs and help their families. Um and by going out into the community and speaking, um which I'm all welcome to do to anybody. So please reach out and invite us. Um I talk about what domestic violence is and also about homelessness amongst domestic violence survivors. So that's key to get that word out. So people don't repeat what's happening in our communities.

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Members of the organization joined News 12’s Della Crews to talk more about their mission.

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