What Happened
In January, I interviewed key staff at three outstanding community-based organizations (CBOs) in New Jersey that are helping protect the people they serve from lead exposure. We also interviewed Heather Sorge, the impressive program manager at Lead-Free New Jersey, that is part of a team that provides backbone support to the organizers.
Our goal was to produce videos that would serve as a resource for health and housing programs across the country who wanted to better collaborate with CBOs in their communities. The videos were part of the virtual National Lead and Healthy Housing Conference in March. We are now making them available to all at no cost on our YouTube channel.
Please check out the eight videos that run from five to 20 minutes in length
- About Lead-Free New Jersey and Heather Sorge, Program Manager (link to 8-minute video)
- About the Paterson Alliance and Shanikwa Lemon, Director of Programs (link to 6-minute video)
- About the East Trenton Collaborative and Shereyl Snider, Community Organizer (link to 6-minute video)
- About the P.R.A.C. of Southern New Jersey and Geovanni Cantizano, Director of Lead Programs (link to 12-minute video)
- Benefits of Collaborating with CBOs (link to 19-minute video)
- Challenges of Collaborating with CBOs (link to 19-minute video)
- Finding Effective CBOs in Your Community (link to 18-minute video)
- Effectively Supporting CBOs (link to 19-minute video)
Why It Matters
CBOs are run by volunteers and local leaders who understand the community’s problems and encourage active involvement of residents or members in decision-making. Their priorities are driven by resident / members concerns and range from housing, health, education, economic development, and other welfare issues. Virtually every community has them.
Where the CBO is focused on housing or health, they usually are interested in efforts to reduce exposure to lead-based paint, especially where they serve low-income or marginalized communities. When they do, they are a powerful voice that can make or break government, private sector programs and policies, or advocacy efforts that impact healthy homes and children’s health.
About Lead-Free New Jersey
Lead-Free New Jersey is an inclusive and equitable collaborative focused on removing lead from New Jersey’s environment. Through its members and staff, it advocates for changes to state and local policy and seeks to eliminate racial and economic inequities by focusing on legacy lead hazards in low-income communities and/or communities of color, while also creating the conditions for children to be free from lead poisoning statewide. It supports local grassroot organizations—called community hubs—in four communities:
Our Take
Tom Neltner has worked with CBOs from across the country for decades and used to run one himself, Improving Kids’ Environment in Indiana. He has seen how powerful effective collaboration with CBOs can be in the success of government and private sector programs and policies. He has also seen how those programs and policies struggle or fail when they do not engage CBOs or see them as a customer rather a partner.
Despite this experience, he learned a great deal from these videos from three unique CBOs and how a statewide organization can effectively support them. We encourage you to check out the videos so you can be more effective in your efforts to reduce lead exposure in your community.