Cheers, chants, gratitude: Staten Island honors Rev. Terry Troia as she steps down from Project Hospitality

Published: Jun. 18, 2026, 1:29 p.m.

By Claire M. Regan | For the Advance/SILive.com

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – She spent the last four decades putting the needs of others first – feeding, clothing and sheltering Staten Island’s underserved and saving lives along the way.

On Tuesday night, the focus shifted to the Rev. Dr. Terry Troia, Staten Island’s “Mother Teresa,” who is stepping down as longtime president and CEO of Project Hospitality, the interfaith agency she helped establish.

More than 450 supporters gathered at the Hilton Garden Inn for a fitting send-off and symbolic group hug for Rev. Troia. The program included praise for her compassion, courage and conviction, and at times resembled a rally as guests rose to their feet in solidarity while chanting, “We love you, we love you, we love you. And where you go, we’ll follow, we’ll follow, we’ll follow.”

“Terry Troia doesn’t delegate – she shows up herself,” said State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton. “In her car, in the middle of the night, on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday. That’s who Terry Troia is.”

The senator thanked the honoree for responding to her emergency calls about constituents in need of clothing, food, shelter or vaccines, and likened her to Dorothy Day, the activist who aided the poor and advocated for radical social change.

“Terry Troia is an extraordinary Staten Islander, an extraordinary human being,” declared Brian J. Laline, executive editor of the Advance/SILive.com, praising her for building a modest soup kitchen into a multi-faceted agency that distributes nearly 3 million meals each year and impacts one out of 10 borough residents.

“She meets people where they are, in their most vulnerable moments,” Laline said, “and reminds them they are not forgotten. She taught us that one person can have a profound impact on a community.”

Laline praised Rev. Troia’s courage for standing up to those who “demonized” her for placing homeless shelters or transitional housing in their neighborhoods. He recalled a frightening night when her car was rocked after a presentation at a Great Kills community center.

“None of it stopped Terry,” Laline said. “She opened my eyes. She opened the eyes of so many of us … and taught us hardship does not disappear just because it is not visible to us.”

Donald E. Reilly, past board chair of Project Hospitality, spoke directly to Rev. Troia, seated just a few feet from the podium: “I hope someday my heart is as big as yours.”

The Rev. David J. Gaeth, pastor of Greendale Community Church in Wisconsin, highlighted the agency’s Faith in Action program, which brings 30 high school, college and adult groups from across the country to a weeklong educational mission program.

Speakers on video included: former Councilmember Debi Rose; former board chair Beverly Garcia Anderson; Sister Josita DaVita of St. Joseph Hill Academy, Rev. Troia’s alma mater; and Alice Diamond, arts advocate and wife of the late Advance publisher, Richard E. Diamond.

Brian Whaley, music director at Our Lady of Fatima R.C. Church in Baltimore who met Rev. Troia when they were theology students at Loyola University, performed a piano tribute to his longtime friend.

The Rev. Janet H. Jones, board chair, served as emcee for the evening.

Gratitude and a message

When it was time for Rev. Troia to take the mic, she acknowledged her two brothers, Sal Troia and Supreme Court Justice Charles Troia. “They have tolerated me coming late to every Thanksgiving dinner for the last 42 years, and then falling asleep on the couch,” she quipped.

She singled out the Rev. Roland Ratmeyer, pastor of Brighton Heights Reformed Church, where the agency began as a soup kitchen; introduced her successor, Dr. Darlene Williams, the agency’s new CEO; saluted the board of directors, and thanked the staff members and volunteers who carry out the agency’s work 365 days a year.

Then the podium became her pulpit.

“The challenge tonight is to find out how to make Staten Island more loving,” she said, stirring the crowd. “We try to love thy neighbor. But how do you love a neighbor who is so different from you?”

“We are a project about hospitality,” she added. “Hospitality comes before love, where the stranger can enter and become friend. Before you can love that person, you have to welcome them in – into our houses, our neighborhoods, our borough, our lives and the places we worship.”

Her voice grew louder. “When we welcome strangers – that’s what we do at food pantries, the drop-in center – we are actually welcoming God.”

Guests at the gala salute included former Staten Island Advance staff writer Laura Bruno, whose in-depth reporting in the 1980s and 1990s highlighted the impact of Rev. Troia’s work.

“It was inspiring to tell the stories of recovery, hope and transformation that countless clients of Project Hospitality shared,” Bruno said. “The goal was to shed light on the unhoused, the hungry and sometimes those struggling with substance use disorder and mental health issues. They always credited the compassion and leadership of Terry Troia for helping them in their journeys of recovery and finding stability.”

“I was so honored to witness this beautiful celebration of Terry and her impact on Staten Island,” said Alfred Cerullo III, president and CEO of the Grand Central Partnership, who has known the honoree for 40 years.

“She was then, as she still is now, smart and loving and full of compassion,” he added. “Her role in our community wasn’t easy and often controversial, but she never let those challenges scare her away. She charged on, always respectfully, driven by her heart. And we have become a better community because of her.”

Her work is not done

Ordained in the Reformed tradition, Rev. Troia joined Project Hospitality as a 26-year-old volunteer in 1984, just two years after its founding as a small organization with one $10,000 contract serving the hungry and homeless at a pair of North Shore churches.

In her leadership roles, she has overseen the organization’s transformation into a $50 million behemoth with more than 400 staff members, over 1,000 volunteers, numerous food pantries and several shelter sites around the borough. Its comprehensive network of programs includes behavioral health services and HIV/AIDS support.

She has served as a homeless policy adviser to every New York City mayor from Ed Koch to Zohran Mamdani and every governor from Mario Cuomo to Kathy Hochul. And she has forged offshoot groups to carry out the Project Hospitality mission, including El Centro del Inmigrante, the Staten Island Immigrants Council, the Staten Island Interfaith Leadership, and the Staten Island Hunger Taskforce.

Rev. Troia will stay connected to Project Hospitality as its president emeritus, and step into a new administrative role in August with the West Brighton-based New World Preparatory Charter School, which she co-founded.

“I will still dedicate myself to speaking about and supporting the lifesaving work and mission of Project Hospitality, and the lives of the hungry and homeless people it serves, in the public spaces of our Island and city where their voices need to be heard,” Rev. Troia told the Advance/SILive.com earlier this year.

“I have lived and breathed the mission of Project Hospitality every day, at home and at work, for nearly a half century. I am eternally grateful to God for allowing me to serve the poorest people and families among us.”

She added: “My 42 years at Project Hospitality have been the very best years of my life.”