Joe Dempsey is one of many whose commitment to CFBNJ began in the passenger seat of Kathleen DiChiara’s golf cart. It was early 2008, and Joe was looking for opportunities to get involved in the community when colleagues told him about the FoodBank.
“Like so many others, I took a tour of the FoodBank with Kathleen in her golf cart, and by the time I got out of the cart, I was all in, asking her what I could do to help,” Joe remembered. “After that, I always said she was like the best development officer ever. If you introduced her to someone and she put them in the golf cart, when they got out, their checkbook was open, and they would do whatever they could for the FoodBank.”
Just a few months later, in May of that year, Joe joined CFBNJ’s Board of Directors. Today, he serves as the Board’s Chairperson, in addition to volunteering in the warehouse twice a week.
And Joe has always answered the call to go above and beyond, even acting as Interim CEO during a period of transition and volunteering with his wife, D’Maris, five days a week during the height of the pandemic, when helping hands were scarce. Having volunteered with various organizations since he was just 12 years old, the desire to help others is deeply ingrained in Joe’s life.
“It’s always been a big part of what I do,” he said. “And now, I think everyone who knows me knows that I’m heavily involved with the FoodBank.”
For years, Kathleen’s mentorship drove and deepened this involvement.
“I was always a great fan and admirer of the work she did,” Joe shared. “There’s no one else like her and there never will be another person like her.”
Joe especially appreciated how gracefully Kathleen tackled such big, persistent, and emotionally charged problems as hunger and poverty. Though it can be easy to get bogged down with worry about all the work still left to do, Joe explained, “Kathleen always had a smile on her face. Despite dealing with very difficult situations and the overwhelming task of trying to help so many people, she was always a ray of sunlight.”
He remembers the first time he ever visited a pantry with Kathleen to see the FoodBank’s impact firsthand. With her guidance, the pantry was ahead of its time, providing a supermarket-style shopping experience many years before the neighbor choice model was widely discussed and implemented.
Joe also recalls how passionate Kathleen was about hiring people who were reentering society from incarceration.
“Many years ago, she was at a state-run meeting, and someone there said that one of the big issues they were facing was finding organizations that were willing to take in someone who was looking to reenter the workforce,” he explained. “And out of the blue, Kathleen said ‘I’ll take a hundred!’ She was such a big believer in giving people second chances, and we’ve been doing that at the FoodBank ever since.”
With this in mind, Joe thinks of CFBNJ as a place that creates opportunities for people – from the neighbors it serves to the staff, volunteers, and supporters who are involved with its work – and he considers himself one of the millions of people whose lives have been touched by the FoodBank.
“It’s been a big part of my life and my family’s lives over the last 17 years, and I feel very fortunate to be able to give back as much of my time as possible,” he said.