Samaritan Center seeks a new home
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

Unless the directors of the Samaritan Center can find a good Samaritan of their own, they may have to close the organization's doors for good in December.

The Samaritan Center is a full-time food pantry and crisis center that serves the Manalapan-Englishtown area. It is affiliated with St. Thomas More Roman Catholic Church and Old Tennent Presbyterian Church, both Manalapan.

The center, which has served the community since 1986 with everything from food and social services to new housing, is losing its lease on the facility it is housed in on Harrison Avenue, Englishtown.

The Harrison Avenue building is for sale and the organization's lease will expire on Dec. 31, according to Samaritan Center Director Carol Puorro.

Puorro said the landlord has been "wonderful all these years, only charging us a nominal rent."

A pragmatist, Puorro said she understands that business is business, but her understanding of the situation does not change the fact that at this point the Samaritan Center's doors will close and the organization has nowhere to go.

A saddened Puorro said she believes that reality could well mean the end of the Samaritan Center and its various programs. She has directed those efforts for 20 years, from the center's founding as a food pantry through the crowning glory that was New Beginnings.

New Beginnings is an 86-home affordable housing community that was built in Manalapan, just outside Englishtown, and provided an opportunity for people to purchase a home in a town where they might not otherwise have been able to do so.

Representatives of the Samaritan Center developed the New Beginnings project and saw it through to its completion several years ago after more than a decade of planning.

Puorro said assistance from the Samaritan Center comes in many forms - from providing food to helping people pay their utility bills as part of a program to help prevent homelessness.

She said the Samaritan Center has always run on donations from area businesses and sponsors that include private donations from individuals and groups, national organizations like the United Way, and local philanthropic endeavors like the Walk with Joe, an event sponsored by Manalapan's Yorktowne Club. The Walk with Joe honors the memory of former Manalapan resident Joe Driscoll, who was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001.

Puorro said all of the money that was donated to the Samaritan Center was put toward programs and not to administrative costs.

Although at this point she sees the future of the center as questionable, Puorro is not giving up on the possibility of an 11th-hour miracle or benefactor that will help the Samaritan Center to be able to keep helping others.