Tree House Cares
Tanya and Matthew Veltz founded Tree House Entertainment Cultural Arts Movement, a Newark based nonprofit that includes Tree House Cares, to uplift residents’ lives by distributing groceries, serving hot meals, provide clothing, personal necessities, and school supplies; and organize free community holiday events, health fairs, and provide resources on health care, job security, housing, and more.
In 2017, Tree House started small with limited groceries and meal distributions, but throughout the years, with various partnerships, supporters, and social media platforms helped grow its services and number of residents served. When COVID hit, the Veltz’s shut down for one week to figure out how to distribute food safely. They set up an outdoor “grab and go” and were the only food pantry open in the area for several months. Financial support from and partnering with CFBNJ helped them get the commercial refrigerators, shelving, and other supplies they needed to greatly expand their services and now they operate six days a week.
A testament to Tanya and Matthew’s commitment, passion, and their relationships with the community, donors, retailers, vendors, volunteers, and the City of Newark, Tree House Cares now operates three community gardens, takes in 10,000-12,000 pounds of fresh produce a week, has received over 24 million pounds of assorted groceries; distributes food three times a week; serves hot meals three days a week; and runs a diabetes prevention program through Summit Health with blood pressure, A1C and cholesterol screenings, to name only a few of the daily and weekly scheduled events!
To learn more about Tree House Cares, and how to volunteer or support, please visit treehouseculturalarts.com
