Helping our own

It is the day before Thanksgiving and all through the Bayonne Equal Opportunity Office, everyone is stirring, probably even the mice (if there are any).
People scramble to get ready for the holiday by taking care of clients and – perhaps one of the most significant elements of the holiday season – preparing food packages that will provide for the neediest people in the community.
This is the 24th year that the BEOF has distributed food on Thanksgiving. Strangely enough, it started when a man came up to Eleanor Tiefenwerth, executive director of the Bayonne Economic Opportunity Foundation, and said that he had no place at his daughter’s Thanksgiving table. Tiefenwerth decided to bring him home.
“I asked Mayor Dennis Collins if he thought other people were alone on Thanksgiving,” she said.
So they began to feed the needy on Thanksgiving, adding one more event to what would become a regular program.
This year, the BEOF expected to cook more than 400 meals at its Fourth Street Senior Center, which is the site that cooks for the weekly Meals on Wheels program.
The annual package was sweetened a lot by Bayonne Medical Center, which delivered 200 desserts that were included in the packages delivered to needy families in Bayonne.
“This agency does an excellent job in serving the needs of the city,” said Daniel Kane, chief executive officer and president of BMC.
The kitchen, which cooks daily meals at Fourth Street and allows for the delivery of hot meals to 190 people throughout Bayonne during the week and 35 on weekends, began with what was then thought to be a crazy idea. Back in 1987, Mayor Dennis Collins was walking along the street with the pastor of St. Andrew’s Church on Fourth Street and asked what the church intended to do with one of its vacant buildings.
“He said he wanted to buy it for a senior center,” Tiefenwerth said.
Collins had the idea that the city of Bayonne could care for its needy seniors rather than rely on county services.
He wanted to establish a senior citizens center on West Fourth Street, a place where seniors could come get a hot meal, meet other seniors and become involved in a variety of programs.
He went to the one person he believed most capable of performing the task, Tiefenwerth, and asked if she would be willing to provide the service, especially to senior citizens living in the downtown area.
Some people at the time thought the BEOF was not equipped to provide the service since they had not been a food provider in the past.
At the time, the service was provided by the North Hudson Council of Mayors, but only at 535 Avenue A near 23rd Street, too remote for some seniors to reach easily.
In November, 1987, the center opened just in time to provide the community with a Thanksgiving dinner.
Not only did the center prove critics wrong, but the center – after renovations done in 2005 – looks as good as ever and has a thriving membership, senior citizens thrilled at the chance of getting out of the house and meeting others.
On Nov. 18, 2009, some of the same people who attended the first Thanksgiving dinner at the Fourth Street Nutrition Center returned to celebrate again along with officials that helped the center along the way, such as former Mayor Joe Doria and Hudson County Director of Human Services Carol-Ann Wilson.
“Some people were not happy back then, but the center has done well,” said Tiefenwerth. “We provide Meals on Wheels every day as part of the nutrition program.” The kitchen at the Fourth Street center cooks the meals for two nutrition sites, Fourth Street and the original site on Avenue A, as well as providing food for the Meals on Wheels program.
Kane said he understood the concepts behind the BEOF, and recalls when his family wanted to give him a present on what he called “a significant birthday.” He went with them to buy clothing, which they took to a local shelter.
“These are the kinds of things that have a lot of impact,” he said.