A Cup of Coffee With Kate Walsh

For Kate Walsh, serving others is something she recalls doing as far back as she can remember. Working alongside her mom in their New Providence kitchen, a 5-year-old Walsh helped prepare sandwiches that would be delivered to those in need in Elizabeth.

Now, 27, the Westfield resident has chosen to continue what began in her childhood, not just in her free time but in her career as well.

An associate director of a Montclair-based non-profit, Walsh focuses on socially-responsible investing for religious communities. The Fairfield University graduate said she got a taste for socially-responsible investing while in college working on an independent study project and was thrilled to find an opportunity to pursue it long-term. 

"What I help them do is not make investment decisions but rather take a look at their portfolios and look at their missions and say, 'Alright, if we have concerns—many religious communities have concerns about women and children—maybe we want to engage an agriculture company that we know is using child labor. Maybe we want to talk to them about their business interests but also make the moral case.

"It's very much a position of social justice in action, as well as making sure that mission and ministry really is infused into their investments—no wholly good company, no wholly bad company—but wanting to make sure that they can use their power as shareholders. It's a niche market but I love it."

After college, Walsh spent a year in Syracuse volunteering in a food pantry and medical clinic for the uninsured.

"I would do it over again in a heartbeat," said Walsh, who added that she lived with other young adults who were also grappling with issues such as living simply, social justice at large and figuring out how they could make a change. "It was the most enlightening and challenging year of my life just seeing so much poverty. I worked morning and afternoons in this food pantry, giving out white bread and bologna sandwiches and three-day old donuts and then I'd walk across the hallway at night and help dispense prescriptions in our medical clinic. I would hand out diabetic, cardiovascular and depression medication and sit back and go, 'there's not a link here?' We're solving the immediate need, which is wonderful, hunger, but we're exacerbating chronic health issues, how do we address this?"

Walsh said she and colleagues within the food pantry began offering wheat instead of white bread and replacing donuts with free, fresh fruit, which she explained was difficult with limited resources.

"It was at that point in my life that I really decided I wanted to be part of a systemic change," she said.  

As glad as she is that her work can have far-reaching effects, Walsh still enjoys making personal connections. Since returning to New Jersey in 2008, Walsh spent more than two years volunteering in Newark teaching English as a Second Language classes. She has also been involved with Bridges in Summit, which she said literally has helped her bridge the gap and connect with people. Walsh is part of a group working on building relationships with the recipients of the food they deliver.

Another program that helps Walsh stay in tune with her personal mission is , which she moderates. The Interfaith group meets monthly at in Westfield to talk about peace and justice issues.

"It's a group of young adults who want to see their future have 'X,'" said Walsh, who started the New Jersey counterpart to the larger Seattle-based affiliate Intercommunity Peace and Justice. "We talk about very large issues but we can look internally but also talk as a group. For me, it's so many of these issues I deal with on a day-to-day basis—labor rights, human rights and environmental concerns—so it's nice to come and talk about the theoretical side as well as being able to sit with my peers and hear about their thoughts and their concerns."

Walsh said the group has consisted of as many as a dozen members and as few as three. Attendees also come from vastly different backgrounds and the overarching theme is "coming together for respectful conversation about very large ideas." 

Each month the group discusses a specific topic provided in a packet of information from the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center. Each meeting begins with an opening reflection and ends with a closing reflection. In conclusion, attendees are also asked to share a word that may have come to mind during the meeting as well as an action they may perform back out in the world. Walsh shared that a member who has been inspired by Sister Susan's recent presentation on and by conversations on labor rights, will only be consuming fair trade coffee and chocolate for the month of June.

"Everyone who's come, usually comes back, maybe not the next month but whenever they can, they come back," Walsh said. "One of the things we encourage people to do is talk about the issue, maybe email two friends or the next time they see their parents say, 'hey what do you think about this?' There's so much power in knowledge. We get overwhelmed and live in happy ignorance. We don't want to think about that."

Also, Walsh explained, following the meetings, someone from the group will post a few paragraphs on a website so that attendees have an opportunity to view what their peers said about the same topic across the globe. 

"There's something about talking about it that makes it a little more real," Walsh said. 

Upcoming Justice Cafe events include the following:

May 23rd Justice Cafe: We will be having Justice Cafe Wednesday, May 23, at 7:30 p.m. at Rockn' Joe's Westfield. The topic is a mystery!

June 21st Justice Cafe Trip!: As for June, we will be doing a road trip! There is a fantastic new documentary being released, entitled, The Island President. The Traco Theater in Toms River will be showing it, and we will plan to go to the 7:30 p.m. showing on Thursday June 21st. We will carpool and leave around 6ish. Since it is a limited run, we may want to purchase tickets ahead of time-but no worries, more details will come closer to the date.  Until then, watch the trailer: http://theislandpresident.com/ It looks fascinating! 

* Note: Walsh enjoys an iced coffee with a bit of skim milk at Rockn' Joe's.