“I like to have a goal every day,” said Edna Mondadori last week, explaining why she does volunteer work. “I knew I wanted to keep active when I retired from work. I knew there were important things that I could do and I could keep involved with people.”
Mondadori, a Secaucus resident, was named Hudson County Senior Citizen of the Year at a special luncheon at Casino in the Park in Jersey City on May 14.
Well known for her volunteer work, Mondadori said she was perhaps most proud of her involvement with the Alzheimer’s support group at the Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center. She was founder and coordinator of the group.
“I’m involved Alzheimer’s very closely,” she said. “My mom had it, although I wish I knew then what I know now. They didn’t even have a name for it back then. This is one of the reasons why I work to get support for families.”
Karyn Urtnowski, director of Secaucus Social Services, who nominated Mondadori to represent the town of Secaucus in the senior citizen of the year considerations, called her “the volunteer of volunteers.”
“There is almost nothing that she hasn’t done to help other people,” said Urtnowski.
As a volunteer, Mondadori has performed tasks that include cooking for other seniors on the town’s weekend Meals on Wheels program, which prepares food for homebound seniors.
“Of course, I’m very involved with volunteer work at the Church of Our Saviour,” she said. “I have done work there since I was a young girl.”
In fact, Mondadori has about 40 years of service to the church, where she continues to serve as the senior warden. She is also director of the church’s memory corner and the churchyard garden rebuilding project, and is involved in setting up Adult Day Care Program. Most recently, she helped set up the Project Linus program there, working with seniors in making blankets for sick, abused and underprivileged children.
Elsewhere, Mondadori volunteers at Clarendon School to read to special education students and volunteers her time to help with clerical work for the reading program. She also volunteers for American Cancer Society, The Friends of the Library, is co-founder of the Library Book Club, and was instrumental in the start-up of the Library School children’s program.
“I call my sister an ‘angel of mercy,'” said Olive Schumann, who noted that their family moved to Secaucus when Edna was 3 years old. “All our lives, she’s been a go-getter. She started to get into things even when she was in high school and she hasn’t stopped. I am very proud of her.”
“I was always very involved,” Mondadori said. “When I was young, I got involved with the Girls Scouts and became a Girl Scout leader, and then many different things.”
Four children
Prior to having children, Mondadori worked as a legal secretary. When she was young, her husband died, and she raised her four children alone.
“Edna has lived an extraordinary life,” Mayor Dennis Elwell said. “Not only did she lose her husband at a very early age, she still managed to raise four children.”
“When I became widowed young, I had to make a new life,” she said. “I realized that I had to think of other people and that to help yourself, you have to help someone else.”
Her four boys all eventually went to college.
When Meadowlands Hospital – then called Riverside Hospital – opened, Mondadori began to volunteer there and eventually worked herself up to the position of director of volunteer services.
“I knew a lot about being a volunteer, so it was easy for me to be the director,” she recalled. “[Volunteers are] coming from a need to be active, to feel useful and to keep busy. They like to use their skills, and maybe they don’t want it for monetary gain, but they do it for psychological and emotional reasons.”
Mondadori served as director for 20 years, and though she no longer serves the hospital in that capacity, she still volunteers. People have called her “a blessing” and “a wonderful woman.”
In presenting her with the plaque for the senior of the year, Elwell said he was very proud of Mondadori.
“She deserves this honor,” he said.
Chosen from all the towns
Although many people knew of her selection as the county’s Senior of the Year a week before the luncheon, they kept it secret so that she did not know about it until it was announced.
“It was a big surprise,” she said. “I was honored to represent Secaucus, but this made my day. Because I know many of the other seniors from around the county and how hard they work. There were a lot of deserving people there.”
She was particularly taken with Peg Shannon Hoehl – the 100-year-old nominee from Union City.
“She was very bright and alert, and I was very impressed with her,” Mondadori said. “I hope that I can do as much as she does 30 years from now.”
Other seniors nominated from their respective towns included: Rose Holzman, Bayonne, Helen Mruk, East Newark, Mayann Morro Terrazzi, Guttenberg, Joe Cundari, Harrison, Marie Bozzone, Hoboken, Tess Brady, Jersey City, June McCain, Kearny, Louise Noble, North Bergen, Yara Marin, West New York, and Ed Keating, Weehawken.
“I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know our nominees for senior of the year,” said County Executive Tom DeGise. “They are all remarkably energetic and involved in their communities. They’re living proof that age is really just a state of mind.”