Helping Out for the Holidays – Making-It-Home & Jersey Cares

Humble Crew had two exciting charity events this past holiday season! The first was a visit from Cynthia Massarsky (Director) and Tim Franco, (Program Coordinator) from Making-It-Home. Making-It-Home is a program through Bergen Volunteer Center that helps veterans, victims of domestic violence, formerly homeless people, disabled individuals, and low-income families furnish their new residences. Making-It-Home picks up, stores, and delivers gently used furniture that has been donated to help those in need.

Cynthia had the idea to begin the Making-It-Home program after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. A family with a child with special needs lost their home, and they were struggling to furnish their new home. Cynthia was able to coordinate a donation from Bob’s Furniture to help the family fill their new space. Ever since then, this program has grown to help countless families and individuals in Bergen County make their new house a home—through their work, they ensure that almost 40,000 pounds of furniture is recycled for good use each year!

The work that Making-It-Home does is impossible without the help of volunteers and donations. Bergen residents and employees, volunteer moving companies, volunteer firefighters, and even former clients of the program are amongst the many who help make this program possible. Making-It-Home also works closely with The Center for Hope and Safety to identify families who could use their help.

Cynthia shared with us that Making-It-Home operates based on a “Housing First Model”. This model proposes that housing is the first step to maintaining employment and long-term housing. Making-It-Home takes it one step further by stipulating that it is furniture that makes a home, not just simply having a space that provides shelter.

We were very grateful to have Cynthia and Tim visit with us and share about the wonderful work they are doing with Making-It-Home. Humble Crew is proud to have donated $1,000 to Making-It-Home to support their mission of helping our neighbors in need!

The second charity event we hosted for the holidays was a volunteer night with a small group of our team. Susie, Jenn, Rob, Seth, Tang, and Amanda all got together to pack 100 First Night Kits for Jersey Cares. These kits include various toiletries to help domestic violence shelters, transitional housing facilities, runaway safe havens, foster homes, and other agencies that work with transitional populations provide hygiene essentials on the "first night" of their stay. We want to give a special shout-out to Susie and Amanda for helping source the supplies and find this great opportunity for Humble Crew to give back during the holiday season!

As always, Humble Crew is proud to give back to our community. We are so happy to have had two amazing opportunities to help out during the holiday season, when giving back feels just a little bit more special. 😊

Read more about Making-It-Home here.

Read more about Jersey Cares here.

An example of the First Night Kits our team assembled: