Ocean County College OceanViews Magazine 2026 Summer-Fall - Flipbook - Page 14
COMMUNITY IMPACT
A FULL-CIRCLE MISSION
Inside the Community Threads store
in Brick, racks of donated clothing line
the walls, while tables are stacked with
hygiene products, cleaning supplies, and
household necessities. Tiffany deSousa,
founder of the CLCL Foundation, walks
through the space, pointing out sections
she and her volunteers assembled by
hand — shelves of children’s shoes, tables
of toiletries’ donated just that week. But
this isn’t your typical secondhand shop.
Everything here is free.
For customers, it is much more than a
donation center.
“I say to them, if you ever feel alone, this
is your community telling you you’re not,”
deSousa said. “There’s dignity here. You
come in, you get a shopping cart, and you
get what you need.”
In just over four months, Community
Threads reached 1,000 shoppers; by the
end of its fifth month, that number had
grown to 1,151, despite relying almost
entirely on word-of-mouth advertising. The
store makes a point of serving everyone.
Families, veterans, foster youth, unhoused
individuals, and elderly residents on
fixed incomes have all come through its
doors seeking items many people take for
granted: winter coats, laundry detergent,
garbage bags, toothpaste, diapers, and
clean bedding. Every item at Community
Threads has been donated by members of
the community, and all of it is completely
free to those in need.
For deSousa, meeting that need is not
charity. It is prevention.
The project grew out of what she describes
as a “gadfly” moment: the closure of
Ocean’s Harbor House youth shelter
in 2023, which left Ocean, Monmouth,
and Atlantic counties without an emergency shelter for minors, and the closest
resources located in Camden or Trenton.
“If you are under the age of 18, there is no
place to go,” deSousa said. “It was imperative that, with no resources to treat, we
had to prevent.”
That effort became the primary mission
of CLCL Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting youth in
need and strengthening families before
crises escalate into abuse, neglect, or
homelessness.
The mission is deeply personal. As a
teenager in 2001, deSousa herself was
a runaway youth who sought refuge at
Harbor House after years of trauma and
instability. A trusted teacher at Toms
River High School South, Andrea Viggiano,
14 Summer-Fall 2026
helped her get support and eventually
became her guardian, offering advice that
would later inspire the nonprofit’s name:
“Choose love. Celebrate life.”
With that support, deSousa graduated
from high school with honors and years
later enrolled at Ocean County College,
where she earned an associate degree in
psychology in 2013. She began working
part-time as a residential counselor at
Harbor House while continuing her education at Stockton University, later moving
into a full-time role at the agency while
still completing her degree. She earned
her B.A. in psychology with a minor in
childhood studies from Stockton in 2019,
and returned to Harbor House part-time
once more before going on to earn a master’s degree in child advocacy and policy
from Montclair State University in 2024.
Her experiences shaped an approach
that is thoughtful, evidence-based, and
long-term. At its center is the belief that
strengthening families and meeting basic
needs can help prevent crises before
they begin—and the community plays an
essential role.
“If you suspect maltreatment, you always
call and make a report. But if what you’re
seeing is no shoes or dirty clothes or things
missing that the community could rally
around and provide, then in my opinion,
that’s our obligation as a community. It
saves CPS resources, it saves your tax dollars, and we’re not investigating people
unfairly or unnecessarily,” she said.
That distinction matters because systems
and institutions do not treat all families
equally. Families living in poverty are
more likely to be reported, investigated,
and separated—not because they cause
more harm, but because poverty itself is
often mistaken for neglect.
“That scares them away from accepting
other forms of help because they’re afraid
they’re going to be labeled,” deSousa
said. “And it isolates them from community—it makes community something
that’s punishing, something that’s judging. It’s important that we remind people
that that’s not what community is.”
In response, CLCL Foundation developed
a three-phase program called Community
Cares. The first phase was the Community
Care Connection “warm line,” a volunteer-run service that connects residents
with nearby resources for food, shelter,
utilities, healthcare, and other necessities
while helping them understand eligibility
requirements.
The second phase became Community
Threads. deSousa credits volunteers,
the store’s volunteer Board of Directors
— including co-founders Lisa Scala and
Kelsey Wetmore, LPC, who remain on the
board — local organizations including the
Women’s Club of Brick, and Mayor Lisa
Crate for helping the store open quickly
despite limited staffing and funding.
And the community’s response has been
overwhelming.
“We had to get a storage unit,” she said.
“The bathroom is filled. The changing
rooms are filled. People were coming with
20 boxes at a time.”
The final planned phase is a door-to-door
delivery service that would allow community members to anonymously request
essential supplies for struggling families
without triggering the fear or stigma often
associated with formal intervention.
“It’s about strengthening families. You’re
not blaming them. You’re not judging
them. You’re giving them the resources
and tools they need to be successful.”
To that end, CLCL also hosts free monthly
“Family Fun Nights,” and peer-support
groups are currently in development,
along with an initiative to connect young
adults aging out of foster care with stable
housing. deSousa is also working with
Dr. Jeff Waid of the University of Minnesota
School of Social Work on research examining the effectiveness of the preventionbased model.
But her biggest goal remains restoring an
emergency youth shelter to the region.
Without one, she says, “lives are at stake
every single night.”
Despite the scale of the challenges,
deSousa remains deeply optimistic about
the power of community.
“People are quick to rise up to a problem
faced by their neighbors, to advocate for
them, to help them. We do it in so many
ways,” she said. “There’s a reason we
form communities. They are the answer
to so many social illnesses. Humans don’t
ever exist in isolation; mentally, physically, we cannot survive alone. It’s our
combination that creates our success.”
“
It’s about
strengthening families.
”
– Tiffany deSousa
founder of the CLCL Foundation
