11/05/2018
Washington Woman's Club is a member of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs. As such, we support the Special State Project, which changes every two years.
For 2020-2022 the Special State Project is Operation Chillout, an all volunteer organization begun in 2000 to assist homeless veterans to get the off the streets and connected to appropriate social services. Their website is https://operationchillout.org/
For 2018-2020 the Special State Project was the Court Appointed Special Advocates of New Jersey. Advocates are trained volunteers appointed by local judges to be their eyes and ears for the welfare of one child or sibling group who are in foster care. These children usually have suffered from physical or s*xual abuse, serious neglect or abandonment. An advocate follows his or her charge through the entire process, from the time the child is assigned by the court until the case is closed. This means that the advocate is the only consistent voice for the child through the years and sometimes multiple homes, and is the only person whose responsibility it solely the child's best interest.
While there are about 40,000 children in the foster care system in New Jersey, only about a third have their own advocates. Advocates are specially trained and agree to a minimum of two years service. They deal with the state agencies, schools, foster and natural parents and write regular reports to their judge.
However, there are other ways to assist this program for those with less time. Currently we are collecting various sizes of sweat shirts and pants and $10 gift cards to places like Walmart, Target, etc. to donate to our local CASA, which is CASA SHaW (serving Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren counties).
