SJ ROOTS was born out of our experience working in the social justice space and constantly finding ourselves the only South Jersey–based voices in the room – even among organizations meant to represent the whole state. New Jersey’s resources, attention, and organizing infrastructure are overwhelmingly concentrated north of Trenton, and even funders who care deeply about the state often have no meaningful investment south of it.

As South Jersey natives on the ground here every day, we saw this gap firsthand. Before we had a name or a formal organization, we spent years building and deepening relationships across the region, listening to organizers, grassroots groups, and community members to understand what was actually missing, so that whatever support we offered was responsive to real, tangible needs. Alongside this work, it became clear to us that South Jersey organizing has also struggled because the backend infrastructure needed to sustain movements has often been missing here as well.

From these experiences came South Jersey ROOTS (SJ ROOTS), a cross-movement hub for organizing, capacity-building, and community-led direct action. South Jersey has extraordinary communities and organizers, and we realized what was missing was a connective hub to bring these efforts together and ensure South Jersey leads these conversations instead of trailing behind them.