Danbury Merchants Group Links Arms with Jericho Partnership to Serve, Strengthen City

DANBURY, CT – A group of Danbury merchants has banded together to mobilize the local business community to support and expand upon initiatives already being undertaken by Jericho Partnership, a faith-based organization that ministers to the at-risk population of our city.

The Jericho Partnership Merchant Group, organized and led by Elmer Palma, the owner of Elmer’s Diner on Padanarum Road, formed earlier this summer with goal of spearheading projects and initiatives that will strengthen the city. “I am the kind of person who wants to do whatever I can for the community, because I can see the needs,” Palma said. “God put it on my mind to build a business group so we can mobilize to do even more. Working with Jericho is the right idea; we can work together.”

Palma said the Merchant Group will put its resources towards myriad of projects underway at Jericho Partnership. “Wherever the need is, that is where our next project will be,” he said. "I am a secular business owner who very much supports the work Jericho is doing to empower youth in our community,” said Maura Newell Juan, Principal Architect at seventy2architects, which has offices on Main Street. “We are looking to build a bridge between Jericho and local business people so we can work together to make Danbury stronger.”
The Merchant Group’s first initiative, underway now, is to raise funds to purchase school supplies for 18 classrooms at South Street Elementary School, a Title I school with whom Jericho is partnering through its CityServe initiative.

“South Street School faces significant challenges on several fronts. Short of even the most basic resources, the dedicated teachers there often reach into their own pockets to purchase paper, pencils and more for their classrooms,” the Merchant Group wrote in a letter to local business owners. “But perhaps its most significant hardship is that its students come from some of Danbury’s lowest-income families; 290 of the 377 students are living at or below the poverty level. Schools with Title I status are not permitted to ask students’ parents to send in much-needed classroom supplies because the families are simply financially unable to contribute. We’d like to support these wonderful kiddos and their amazing teachers.”

The Merchant Group plans to fill South Street School’s gymnasium with mountains of notebooks, pencils, rulers, scissors, folder, glue sticks, hand sanitizer, pencil sharpeners, and more on August 22; teachers will be invited to “go shopping” for what their class will need.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled that this wonderful group of Danbury business owners has linked arms with Jericho, through CityServe, to serve some of our neediest residents,” said Carrie L. Amos, Jericho’s President. “In regard to their first project, serving youth in this city has been a Jericho mission since Day 1, and here we are 10 years into our ministry, reaching into deeper pockets of need through CityServe. To know that the local business community is joining us to serve these kids and their teachers is exciting, and ushers in a new season of partnership to create city transformation.”

Palma said future projects will be to provide warm winter clothing for the city’s homeless population.
In addition to Palma and Juan, members of The Jericho Partnership Merchant Group are Maria Ordonez, an Agent with State Farm; Janeisa Kaplan, a Realtor with Keller Williams; and Richard Beattie, owner of a Danbury Chick-fil-A restaurant. Palma said he invites and welcomes “all business leaders with a good heart” to join the Merchant Group.

Jericho Partnership is a collaboration of ministry organizations dedicated to serving the at-risk community of Danbury, Conn., focusing on issues related to life and health, youth, homeless and those in needy. Their mission is to "mobilize ministry and transform the city of Danbury for the glory of God and the common good of its people. We will do this via a radical and sustainable partnership of Christ-centered churches, word-and-deed ministries and private foundations."

Read more here.

— Written by Lisa Siedlicki