Adele LaTourette looks back on her favorite CFBNJ memory with fondness and humor.
“I got to meet Bruce Springsteen, so that was very exciting,” she shared.
It was mid-1980s when the iconic New Jersey native visited the FoodBank’s headquarters on Stockon Street in Newark. Springsteen had famously told CFBNJ founder Kathleen DiChiara that he wanted to be put to work doing whatever was most needed.
Laughing, Adele recalled: “He was actually out on Stockton Street directing traffic during the food distribution, and people were stopping him and saying, ‘You look exactly like Bruce Springsteen!’”
“When Bruce speaks, people listen,” she continued. “So, his voice on this issue, as in his music which so many people relate to, rings strong and true. That’s why his support of the FoodBank has meant a lot over the years.”
It was a meaningful moment in a decades-long career advocating for hunger relief. Adele first started working at a food pantry in 1979 before helping to found Hunger-Free New Jersey, an advocacy organization focused on creating productive relationships with policymakers and championing transformative legislation. For more than 40 years, she served as the organization’s Director. In 2022, she joined the team at CFBNJ, where she’s now the Assistant Vice President of Policy & Advocacy.
But Adele’s involvement with the FoodBank goes back much further. CFBNJ and Hunger-Free New Jersey have worked together towards a common goal for many years, so Adele often visited and worked at the FoodBank.
“I’ve had the Community FoodBank of New Jersey in my life for quite some time,” she said.
That’s how she came to know and love Kathleen DiChiara.
“Our relationship has always been one of camaraderie and mutual respect,” Adele said. “Kathleen was always ahead of her time.”
In the 90s, Adele remembers being allowed to bring her young daughter to work at the FoodBank a few times a week because Kathleen understood and empathized with the needs of working parents.
“Even in those days, Kathleen knew about a mother’s struggle and wanted to help out with childcare,” she shared.
Decades later, Adele made the move to CFBNJ to support the organization’s goal of developing a policy and advocacy platform that’s fully informed by New Jersey neighbors in need.
“In order to do that,” she explained, “we need to have community connections through our network of local food assistance organizations.”
Though no two workdays are the same for her, Adele spends much of her time fostering connections with local organizations, talking to legislators, sitting in policy working groups, and researching and reading about hunger relief developments on the state and national levels.
Adele’s life’s work points back to one central focus: justice.
“For me, justice means food justice and making sure that, when we have bad policies in place, we have the capacity and the voice to fight them as much as we have the capacity and the voice to bring forth good policies that really focus on food justice,” she said, “like making sure that there’s SNAP advocacy and making sure that more people get access to school meals.”
Adele’s work means everything to her, but it also leads her to some important questions:
“Why is someone in need of help to get a meal? That’s the first question. And what can we do to make sure that they don’t have to go to an emergency food pantry, while also shortening the lines that have grown in such a short time?”
“I think we really need to examine how we treat our fellow human beings and what we want for society as a whole. If we do that, we won’t have people who are hungry and in need of emergency food,” she said.
