Above and beyond; Jewish Family Service volunteers honored

The Jewish Family and Counseling Service of Jersey City, Bayonne and Hoboken will host its 11th Annual Breakfast today (Sunday, May 21) to honor volunteer leaders Heidi Rosen, Sally Mason and Shirley Porte for their time and efforts to the non-profit agency. The agency provides support and services for the troubled, frail and homebound elderly and meets the emergency needs to the hungry and homeless. Hoboken resident Heidi Rosen has been a Jewish Activist for most of her adult life. In college, she was chairperson of the Arts Festival Committee and the Oppressed Jewry Committee at Rutgers University Hillel. She then founded a group called Freedom for Oppressed Children of Israel (FOCI) that adopted a Soviet Jewish child and initiated a letter-writing and general publicity campaign to bring her plight to the attention of Americans. Shortly moving to Hoboken six years ago, Rosen joined the Hoboken Branch of the Young Leadership Division of the United Jewish Appeal. As a board member of YLD, she has volunteered at the local soup kitchen and helped organize volunteers for the JFCS Passover Food Delivery program. Fellow YLD members said she has been instrumental in bringing Hoboken’s Jewish youth community together and working with the United Synagogue of Hoboken to make Hoboken a vibrant community. Rosen is a now on the JFCS Board of Directors and serves as vice president of Hoboken. She chairs the JFCS Strategic Planning Committee as well as Hoboken Nominations. Professionally, Rosen is a health analyst at the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp.’s Correctional Health Services. She holds degrees from Fairleigh Dickinson and Rutgers universities. Sally Mason, the JFCS honoree from Bayonne, has been a devoted and active advocate for children and families since 1971, when she was a social worker for the Bayonne Community Day Nursery and the Hudson School for brain-injured children. In 1973, she was appointed as executive director of the Community Day Nursery, a private non-profit care center where she continues to serve. Mason has also been an active member of the Policy Development Board as a child care advocate advising the Division of Youth and Family Services and the New Jersey Department of Family Development on contract child care related issues. On a county level, she is actively involved on the Child Care Committee of the Hudson County Human Services Advisory Council. In addition to all of these services, Mason is a Board Director of the Bayonne Jewish Community Center, the Bayonne Jewish Community Council, the Hoboken Section of the National Council of a Jewish Women and Hadassah. Jersey City resident Shirley Porte has always been involved as tireless worker helping others. Throughout her life, she was a member of the Citizens’ Advisory Committee (Tri-state) Regional Plan Association; appointed as Jersey City represented to participate in the New Jersey Governor’s Conference on Education; helped organize and then served on the Hudson County Committee for a Community College; and appointed chairperson of the first Consumer Protection Committee of Jersey City. Porte has also held many offices including president, on a local and regional level, of the Women’s American Organization for Rehabilitation through Training, and founded the Bayonne, North Hudson and State Island chapters. And as a member of the Jersey City Temple Beth-El, Porte chairs the personnel committee. But Porte was a professional opera singer before she married her husband Elliott Porte, so her interest and participation in music has continued through volunteer work. In her capacity as president of Jersey City State College’s Community Orchestra Board of Directors, she’s been involved in many musical programs as well as chairing many dinners and musical affairs. Porte has also been a member of the Jersey City Jewish Community Center music committee and the adult activities committee. Porte now works full time with her husband in the printing and advertising business, and with this skill, has also become editor of the Jewish Family and Counseling Service newsletter. The 11th Annual Jewish Family and Counseling Service Breakfast honoring these three community-minded women wll be on May 21 at 10 a.m. at the Congregation B’Nai Jacob, located at 176 West Side Avenue in Jersey City. To attend the breakfast or to learn about services provided by Jewish Family Service, call 436-1299.