Highland Park’s popular social justice activist Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale , co-pastor of the Reformed Church of Highland Park (RCHP), will be the Green Party of New Jersey’s 2017 candidate for governor of New Jersey. The formal announcement will take place at the Green Party Town Hall event featuring Dr. Jill Stein on Friday, November 4, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Conference Center in University Hall at Montclair State University. Rev. Kaper-Dale will be featured, along with other Green Party candidates and officials.
“We are extremely proud to have Seth Kaper-Dale at the top of our slate of candidates in next year’s statewide elections,” said Julie Saporito-Acuña, Chair of the Green Party of New Jersey. “Through his sincere and impassioned devotion to ideals that the Green Party of New Jersey holds dear, we hope to focus the discourse of next year’s election cycle on the issues that other parties have neglected for far too long.” Committed to upholding, defending and promoting the principles of peace, ecology, social justice, and democracy, the Green Party of New Jersey is the statewide affiliate of the Green Party of the United States. website at www.gpnj.org.
A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Seth Kaper-Dale, the father of three daughters, has been co-pastor of Highland Park Reformed Church for 15 years in partnership with his wife Stephanie. Since 2001, Rev. Kaper-Dale has led the Reformed Church of Highland Park “to deeply engage in issues of community development and political action that focus on the most vulnerable members of our society,” he said. In 2006, Rev. Kaper-Dale created RCHP-Affordable Housing Corp., which in the past 10 years, has provided housing for women aging out of foster care, homeless Veterans, re-entering citizens, justice-involved youth, chronically homeless mentally ill adults, refugees and asylum seekers.
In addition, Rev. Kaper-Dale has worked on behalf of the rights of refugees, and is vice-chair of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, helping to lead an effort to end solitary confinement in New Jersey jails and prisons. Most recently, he has spearheaded interfaith efforts around refugee resettlement, founding Interfaith-Refugee and Immigrant Services and Empowerment (Interfaith-RISE). Participants from approximately 30 local congregations — Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Buddhist so far — have joined together to help welcome victims of the world’s abuses into the region.