A group of teens volunteering with a program called Teens Tackle Homelessness spent an afternoon with the children of New Community Harmony House as they prepared to start school this fall. Harmony House is NCC’s transitional housing facility for homeless families and is located at 278 South Orange Ave. in Newark. Homeless families receive support services including case management and relocation to permanent housing. The volunteers, who came with the Summit based group, Bridges Outreach, hosted a picnic, played games and distributed backpacks to Harmony House families. Newark resident Krystle Crawford recently became homeless and arrived at Harmony House with her two sons, ages 4 and 18 months. She said she appreciated the volunteers visiting and organizing activities for the children at the shelter. “I think it’s good, it gives them something to do,” Crawford said.
For more than 50 years, New Community Corporation has walked the walk of social justice, helping residents of inner cities improve the quality of their lives to reflect individual God-given dignity and personal achievement. After all, NCC was birthed from the literal ashes of the civil disorders of 1967 by a core group of Black community leaders and White allies, including a young priest named William Linder. Together, they modeled through word and deed the moral principle and reality that Black Lives Matter.
Today, just as in 1967, NCC joins in solidarity with all those who seek justice and an end to police brutality and racism.
