About Elijah’s Promise
The Elijah’s Promise Community Kitchen was started in August of 1989 and since its inception, the soup kitchen has grown from an organization of three paid staff and volunteers serving 35,000 meals a year to a multi-service organization of 20 paid staff and hundreds of volunteers serving over 375,000 free meals a year throughout central New Jersey.
Over this last year, we:
• Served over 30,000 free nutritious meals a month—a record high and there are no indicators that need is decreasing.
• EP On Wheels—Our new mobile meal program is serving over 2,500 meals a month to highly food insecure neighbors who can’t get to the Community Soup Kitchen.
• Partnered with over 10 social service organizations who regularly pick up food to bring to their food insecure clients.
• Partnered with local health providers for access to medical services for our guests including flu shots, COVID-19 vaccines and blood pressure screenings.
• Expanded our Social Service Team to provide nutrition counseling to a record number of more guests while also helping them access housing, SNAP and other social service benefits.
• Distributed a record amount of winter coats, socks and hygiene products to homeless individuals.
• Restarted the Promise Culinary School, giving clients critical job training for employment.
We are more than just a Soup Kitchen
Elijah’s Promise harnesses the power of food within our job training curriculum, community garden programming, social service assistance to individuals and families, community focused nutrition classes, social enterprise food businesses, and community food systems advocacy.
For decades, we have worked with our community and listened to their needs to build programming that addresses needs. Every day we strive to do more to change lives through the power of food – that is our promise to the Greater New Brunswick community.
Click the images below to read more about Elijah’s Promise.
Leadership
We are grateful for all of the faithful leaders and community members serving Elijah’s Promise in diverse ways. Below you will find a current listing of our board of trustees and advisory board:
Board of Trustees (Officers):
Gabriel A. Lavigne, President
Tracey O’Reggio Clark, Vice-President
Steven Rampolla, Treasurer
Heather Cole-Lewis
Board Members:
Mohammed Salyani
Jim Zullo
Ronald Struminger
Ed Rebenack
Amy Dees
Kevin McGowan
Erin Capone
Ed DeVeaux
Parminder Bansil
Claudio Mir
Dr. Richard McCormick
Patricia Dalton, Esq.
Michelle Wilson, Executive Director
Lydia Richardson, Chief Financial Officer