Planning to Stay

We have re-rooted the HUUB as an anchor institution in our community by opening our doors, turning our values into the community, and inviting our neighbors in; by developing partnerships and collaborative projects with like-minded people and organizations; and by investing in our buildings so they are more attractive assets. An article in The Progressive magazine by Laurie Mazur, “Fix it and They Will Come,” gives a wonderful background on the HUUB and how we've used ioby to support our work over the past few years.

Reconnecting with our neighbors has been led by the Joe Thomasberger Community Fellows, a four-year-old program that hires and supports the development of local young adults to be leaders in the city. We train them in Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), task them to connect with and listen to our neighbors, and help them develop projects that respond to what they hear. Their work has been fundamental to HUUB’s success.

Even more recently, we have been actively adjusting to continue doing this work in response to the COVID19 pandemic and physical distancing needed to help control it. We have helped lead the Healthy Orange Coalition's effort to share relevant and verified public health information and business resources in three languages (English, Spanish, and Haitian Creloe). We hosted the city's only online Mayoral Candidates Forum, and have been moving our activities and programs onto virtual platforms so we can still see our friends and neighbors even though we can't be with them.

This fundraising campaign will let us:

1. continue and grow the Thomasberger Fellows program,

2. expand our relationship building across the city with a focus on sustainability, anti-displacement projects, and COVID-19 relief, and

3. continue to invest in our facilities in response to the growing diversity of events and activities happening at The HUUB.

With the funds we are raising, we will:

• Recruit the fifth cohort of Thomasberger Fellows over the summer and start meeting weekly in September 2020.
• Begin organizing the 100-Year-Old House Coalition to develop an equity based narrative and subsequent planning policies in Orange, NJ. The goal of the coalition is to create a multi-scale, multi-system strategy for people’s planning to stay, able to slow displacement, protect tenants and homeowners, and promote green investment in aging homes.
• Purchase equipment to meet demand in our three program spaces, the Sanctuary, Parish Hall and kitchen, and the first floor of Hale House. We'll get new appliances to be more sustainable (like dishwashers so we can stop using disposable plates, cups, flatware), furniture to be more comfortable (for major life events, such as weddings, graduations, or memorials), and A/V equipment to be more technological (to provide better performance and recording opportunities for the many performance artists who use our facilities).

We need to have strong social systems to manage climate change, economic shifts, and racial disconnection. Like many other cities recovering from disinvestment, there is a deep sense of loss from reduced economic opportunities, historical trauma, increased police presence, disjointed communities, and an overall lack of representation in Orange. The loss of social cohesion within the community means that the only forces tying people together is a shared sense of hopelessness.

In response, The HUUB is successfully meeting the need of a public place for people to gather in community and build relationships in Orange. By focusing on what is already here and with guidance from the Thomasberger Fellows, the asset-based activities happening at The HUUB are kindling the flames of hope and possibility in the city.

As an anchor institution in Orange, we believe that finding innovative ways to tangibly leverage our values and our community's bounty of human and social resources to create a more just and equitable city is our social responsibility.