October 2013 Results Newsletter

grants

results October 2013 Newsletter

Merging to Maintain With The Trust’s help, two dance groups forged New York Live Arts, combining the best of both | page 5

Questions about setting up a fund at The Trust? Contact: Jane Wilton, general counsel, at (212) 686-2563; Gay Young, VP for donor services, at (212) 686-2234; or Bob Edgar, VP for donor relations, at (212) 686-2564.

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Musical ensemble thingNY plays at the recently opened Spaceworks LIC, which provides affordable rehearsal space for performing artists. Photo: Deneka Peniston

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n the past few months, New York became a friendlier city for artists, and it’s about to get even friendlier. The first of five Spaceworks facilities opened, welcoming performing artists to three wellequipped rehearsal rooms and a music studio in Long Island City, Queens. The cost? $12 to $16 an hour— about the same as a couple of minutes at traditional studios.

For visual artists, the first 200-square-foot studio spaces are set to open in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and will cost $350 a month. And that’s just the beginning.

Spaceworks, a nonprofit hatched by the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and supported by a $216,000 Trust grant, is developing 25,000 square feet of rehearsal and studio space across the City in the next couple of years (see map).

The organization also connects artists with institutions such as the Chocolate Factory Theater, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Trust for Governors Island. They’ll help Spaceworks hold open-studio and professional-development events for artists.

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Paint, Dance, Sculpt, and Make Music for a Bargain

The Trust has funded other efforts to make the City an affordable place for artists, including Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s artist residency programs, which let artists rehearse and perform in vacant commercial space. In East Harlem, Artspace recently broke ground for its conversion of P.S. 109 into an affordable live/work community for artists. (To apply to Spaceworks, visit Spaceworks LIC spaceworksnyc.org.)

Governors Island Building 301 Williamsburg Spaceworks Red Hook Spaceworks Spaceworks Gowanus

The Magic of Free The only art museum in a borough of 1.5 million, the Bronx Museum of the Arts is recognized as a treasure, but for years, most visitors came from outside the borough.

Since 2007, The Trust has made $152,000 in grants to the museum to market its programs and free admission to Bronx residents, some of whom live in America’s poorest Congressional district. The grants paid off.

“Once people heard they could come here free, attendance reached 50,000 last year, a 50% jump,” says Holly Block, executive director, adding that many first-time visitors live nearby.

“Glad this is right here in the neighborhood,” and “I loved my visit here. I’m from the Bronx, lived here all my life,” read recent comments in the guest book.

The museum’s permanent collection combines contemporary works by artists of African, Asian, and Latin American descent and artwork by Bronx natives. It offers educational programs for a variety of age groups and a careermanagement and exhibition program for emerging City artists. “The collections, programs, and events were designed to be relevant to local audiences,” says Kerry McCarthy, program officer at The Trust. “We’re thrilled our grants have led to more neighbors using this great cultural resource.”

The Trust’s grants encouraged others to help. Free admission will be extended through 2015, thanks to a $500,000 gift from Shelley and Donald Rubin, founders of the Rubin Museum of Art.

Hackathon Helps Rockaways Rebound Days after Superstorm Sandy hit, Jessica Klein of Belle Harbor, Queens, plunged into helping her badly damaged neighborhood. A programmer at Mozilla, Klein realized her tech skills could be put to work connecting volunteers with those who needed them. With two friends, she created the website and nonprofit Rockaway Help.

The site was used to track down an older resident who had been evacuated from a Rockaway nursing facility. “We were able to get her home by connecting her with a Spanishspeaker who could pick her up an hour away,” says Klein.

The site helped Team Rubicon, a group of military veterans, mobilize volunteers to clear debris and rebuild homes.

Communities in the Rockaways are on the front lines of Atlantic storms, geographically isolated from the rest of the City, and home to pockets of entrenched poverty. As part of The Trust’s emphasis on resiliency, a $10,000 grant to Rockaway Help was used to hold a hackathon to train

residents and community groups to create and use digital maps, applications, and forums to track recovery from Sandy and prepare for future storms. They’ve learned how to use Twitter to get local news; communicate with FEMA online; and to scan and save family photos so they’re protected from floodwaters.

The White House honored Klein for her work running the hackathon and named her a “Champion of Change.”

Jessica Klein, Jaime Jordan, and Katie Honan created RockawayHelp.com; (clip) New York Daily News

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Future in Focus “Before, I read things with blurry vision, but since I got a free pair of glasses, I am able to see the world clearly.”

—A 6th-grader at P.S. 295 in Queens

When a textbook, blackboard, or screen looks fuzzy, students fall behind and grades drop. But many children don’t know any different, or are aware of their family’s money troubles and don’t mention their vision problems.

Since 2006, The Trust has helped expand Helen Keller International’s ChildSight program, which provides free testing, glasses, and referrals to optometrists. With Trust grants totaling $295,000, the program set up screening hubs to target students at schools and alternative learning centers with many immigrants and low-income students. In the past seven years, the program has screened more than 152,200 City students and provided 24,299 free glasses.

Many of these young people have free glasses thanks to the generosity of David Warfield, a Broadway and vaudeville actor who was blind at the time of his death in 1951. In his will, he created the David Warfield Fund in The New York Community Trust to prevent blindness and help those with vision problems.

One Young Woman’s Fight Against Cyberbullies In middle school, Rachel Mayo received hateful instant messages and posts to her MySpace page. In high school, she started researching cyberbullying. She concluded the problem was prevalent but underreported in City schools and recommended an anti-cyberbullying campaign with an anonymous reporting system.

Mayo, who now attends Brandeis University near Boston, won the $2,000 second-place prize in the Working in Support of Education (WiSE) Quality of Life Competition. A teacher encouraged her to send the report to her councilman, Mark Weprin, who decided to sponsor legislation based on her research: It authorizes the City’s Human Rights Commission to run anti-cyberbullying workshops in schools, libraries, and government agencies. Mayor Bloomberg signed the law in 2012.

Over the past five years, The Trust has granted WiSE $210,500 for the competition, which has inspired hundreds of New York students to find solutions to real-world problems.

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For cyberbullying research, Rachel Mayo (right) won an award funded by The Trust, leading to a law signed by Mayor Bloomberg.

Cover story

Merging to Maintain the Mission

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ompetition for funding among the City’s 40,000 nonprofits is fierce. Many struggle to stay open because of funding cuts, debt, changes in leadership, or lingering effects of the recession.

Mergers and alliances are often the best path to preserve programs run by beleaguered nonprofits. Unfortunately, even exploring a merger costs money. That’s where The Trust comes in.

In recent years, the Trust has helped dozens of arts, social service, and education groups merge or share resources. While such projects aren’t as glamorous as constructing buildings, they are efficient ways to save—and even expand—vital services.

Consider one example that’s drawing attention: Good Shepherd Services and its merger with Groundwork.

Founded and directed by the dynamic Richard Buery, Groundwork helped Brooklynites in East New York and Bedford-Stuyvesant through after-school, collegeprep, leadership-development prep, and other programs.

When Buery moved on to lead the Children’s Aid Society, Groundwork fell on hard times. To make sure these struggling communities continued to be served, in 2012 The Trust made a grant of $70,000 to Good Shepherd Services, a venerable group serving youth and families citywide, to take over Groundwork’s programming.

The results are remarkable. While maintaining most Groundwork offerings, Good Shepherd has added: • 273 young people to after-school programs • A Close-to-Home facility for girls who would otherwise be sent upstate to juvenile detention centers • A community center offering free programs for young people at Boys and Girls High School in Bed-Stuy • A journal-writing program focusing on anger management, communication, and literacy skills for 40 young adults in Bed-Stuy who’ve already been in legal trouble • A mentoring program for 16 teens on probation • Case management for 48 young people who’ve been arrested or accused of crimes

A girl learns yoga moves in a free Groundwork class in Brooklyn.

Cover: “The Spectators,” choreographed by Pam Tanowitz, at New York Live Arts. Cover photo: Ian Douglas

Recent Trust-Supported Mergers and Alliances • $120,000 to merge and transition Dance Theater Workshop and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company into New York Live Arts • A $70,000 grant helped Groundwork merge into Good Shepherd Services • $75,000 to merge the American Music Center with Meet the Composer to form New Music USA • $70,000 to merge Pregones Theater and Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre • $60,000 for a strategic alliance between Urban Arts Partnership and Manhattan New Music Project • A $50,000 grant to SeaChange Capital Partner’s New York Mergers, Acquisitions, and Collaborations Fund, has helped Harlem Dowling merge into Children’s Village; and Safe Space merge into Episcopal Social Services

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Rockwell “Rocky” Chin is the founder-advisor of the Ettie Chin Hong Fund in The New York Community Trust with a gift from his aunt. In his career as a civil rights lawyer, Chin defended the rights of women, the disabled, immigrants, and laborers. He now directs the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity in the NYS Division of Human Rights.

He’s a board member of the Asian American Arts Alliance and a founding member of the Association of Asian American Yale Alumni; the Asian American Bar Association of New York; and the Amerasia Journal.

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Rocky

Out of the Shadows Within months of President Obama’s June 2012 announcement of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, The Trust quickly got funding out to community, immigrant, and legal service groups to help young people apply. The first foundation in the City to make such grants, The Trust has given more than $1,000,000 to groups helping immigrants apply, including a grant to DRUM: Desis Rising Up & Moving, which works with South Asians in New York.

The Trust also helped distribute funding from other foundations to assist undocumented children across the country.

Rishi Singh, 28, was brought to Queens from Trinidad and Tobago when he was 10.

Here’s his story: I was valedictorian of Thomas Edison High School in Queens.

Because I didn’t have a Social Security number, I couldn’t apply for most scholarships. I took odd jobs to pay for a bachelor’s degree at Hunter College, but I was frustrated not being able to really plan since most jobs require legal status.

While organizing as a leader at DRUM, I heard about the DACA program, which allows young people to get financial aid and work without fear of deportation. DRUM helped me apply, and I was approved.

My dad passed away three years ago, and I help support my family. I now have a great job as the New York City outreach coordinator for “People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights,” a U.N. civil society conference.

Photo: Amy Wolf/New York Community Trust

The charitable passions of our donors and our grants program often dovetail to get results. To learn more, contact Jane Wilton at (212) 686-2563.

October 2013

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Long Island’s Water Quality: at a Tipping Point

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ll 2.8 million Long Islanders rely on a sole aquifer system for water for everything from mixing baby formula to watering lawns. Increasingly, though, pesticides, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, roadway runoff, and aging septic systems and sewage treatment plants are polluting the Island’s source of drinking water, streams, ponds, rivers, and bays.

New studies have found an alarming increase in contaminants in ground and surface water. In Suffolk County alone, nitrogen contamination has increased 200% in the past decade, prompting the State Department of Environmental Conservation in 2010 to classify 100 bodies of water as too “impaired” for swimming or fishing.

To address this urgent contamination problem, the Long Island Community Foundation made $507,000 in water-quality grants from 2009 to the present through our Henry Philip Kraft Family Memorial Fund, set up to protect and conserve the environment by reducing or eliminating toxins.

The following is a sample of what these grants have accomplished.

The Path to Clean Water Since 1977, the Long Island Pine Barrens Society in Riverhead has been working to protect the Island’s environment. With a 2011 grant of $35,000, the Society teamed up with Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Groups for the East End, and the Nature Conservancy to create a Long Island Water Quality Protection Plan.

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The plan is essential because Nassau and Suffolk counties have more than 50 water districts, “creating artificial boundaries for a natural resource that has no boundaries,” says Sol Marie Alfonso Jones, program officer at the Long Island Community Foundation. The fragmentation leads to scattershot enforcement of clean water laws and prevents State and Federal water standards from being met.

Long Island Clean Water Partnership now works closely with elected officials, community associations, maritime businesses, and concerned citizens to protect water quality.

Organizers held a Water Worries Conference in 2012, bringing together experts, advocates, and policy makers to create strategies for solving the region’s water woes.

More than a dozen hearings and public information sessions have been organized across the Island.

“The Long Island Community Foundation grant activated our clean water campaign and empowered us to involve the whole Long Island community,” says Richard Amper, Pine Barrens executive director.

r on numbe d e as b s Grade raw sewage of iol ations dumping v Hunting ton t Bergen Poin Patchogue Riverhead Glen Cove k Cedar Cree on Port Jeffers k Stony Broo L ong B each Bay Park ants treatment pl and Bay Park gallons of , ch ea B ng Lo n Stony Brook, ing more than 60 millio hern Nassau were discharg e per day into bays in sout had more treated sewag tment plants ea tr e ag w land’s se Half of the Is tions in five years la io v 0 than 7 n system to d a notificatio ha t n la p ed gle age is releas Not a sinde nts when sew inform resi

Protecting Open Waters With $50,000 in grants from the Kraft Fund for the environment at the Long Island Community Foundation, Peconic Baykeeper, a nonprofit advocate for the Peconic and South Shore estuaries, helped establish a “no discharge zone,” where boats can no longer dump their sewage in open waters. During a typical summer weekend, more than 24,000 boats crisscross the South Shore Estuary, which includes barrier islands, bays, beaches, sea life and underwater vegetation from the Nassau-Queens border to Southampton.

Before the law took effect, many of the boats would

empty their sewage holding tanks while under way or dump their treated sewage waste overboard. Now they must discharge their waste at pump out facilities. The “no-discharge” designation has prevented millions of gallons of waste from entering the water, but Baykeeper’s work is far from done. Sewage treatment plants, storm water runoff, and fertilizers continue to add harmful nitrogen to our ocean waters.

Identifying the Worst Polluters In 2011, with help from Community Foundation grants totaling $50,000, the Citizens Campaign for the Environment in Farmingdale analyzed 10 sewage treatment plants across Nassau and Suffolk and revealed alarming hazards. In the first-ever Long Island Sewage Report Card, nearly half the plants barely made the grade, while three received Ds. The faulty sewage plants release billions of gallons of undertreated or raw sewage into bays, beaches and surface water each year, according to the Campaign’s website, jeopardizing human health, closing beaches, killing fish and wildlife, and costing taxpayers millions of dollars in costs. “Long Island’s sewage woes are frightening,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign.

The report card revealed three of the sewage plants were discharging more than 60 million gallons of treated sewage a day into bays in southern Nassau; half had more than 70 violations in five years; and none had a system to notify residents when sewage was released. In response to the report, Nassau created an email system to let residents know about dangerous discharges.

Our Kraft Fund grants haven’t just helped improve the Island’s water quality; they’ve also raised public awareness of the problems.

“We’re committed to addressing this life-threatening issue of water quality on Long Island,” said David Okorn, Long Island Community Foundation executive director. “The Kraft Fund makes this commitment possible.”

October 2013

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Can Soul Food be Healthful?

Westchester’s Faith-Based Health Project Says “Amen!”

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hile the national wellness movement is thriving in Westchester, it has barely reached neighborhoods with the highest rates of chronic diseases. Westchester Community Foundation is helping Yonkers and Peekskill residents eat and feel better. Its Faith-Based Health Initiative reaches African-American and Latino communities where they live, work, and worship. With $135,000 in grants from the Westchester Health Fund, churches have been working with community and health care organizations since 2010.

In southwest Yonkers, Sister to Sister International, a nonprofit focused on improving the lives of AfricanAmerican women, helps Kingdom Christian Cultural Center introduce members of the congregation to a healthier lifestyle. The church is in a neighborhood with few places to buy nutritious, affordable food, so Sister to Sister used $65,000 in grants to start on-site health and fitness programs and open a fitness center. About 40 congregants and neighbors take Zumba classes every week, and many spread the “gospel of fitness.”

Sister to Sister also organizes cooking demonstrations and leads supermarket tours to teach shoppers how to read food labels. Congregants learn to grow vegetables and herbs in small spaces and take part in a vegetable swap. These programs were so popular that parishioners were inspired to publish a cookbook of traditional family recipes made with less saturated fats.

Sister to Sister even encouraged the church to include more wholesome food in the meals it serves. These days, worship services often echo the theme of caring for the body as well as the soul, with congregants sharing success stories about weight loss and managing chronic illnesses such as

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diabetes and heart disease. A screening of the documentary “Soul Food Junkies” prompted a vigorous discussion about health in the AfricanAmerican community.

The message: Soul food can be nutritious and also taste delicious!

“The Zumba class, my container garden, and learning to shop for more nutritious foods changed my life,” says parishioner Marie Smith. She says she was a classic soul-food junkie, but after her father died from lung cancer, she embraced a healthier lifestyle. She’s lost about 70 pounds, and no longer needs prescription drugs to control high blood pressure.

In Peekskill, the Hudson River HealthCare’s Project HOPE (Health Opportunities to Promote Equality) used its $70,000 in our Health Fund grants to work with Mount Olivet Baptist Church, the Spanish Tabernacle Church of Christ, and a food pantry run by Caring for the Homeless of Peekskill to coordinate health programs. Project HOPE organized citywide walking programs, shopping trips to a nearby farmers market, and a Know Your Numbers campaign to identify blood pressure readings, lipid profiles, and other critical measures of health. The Fit4Christ instructors at Mount Olivet Baptist Church engage teens with hip-hop dancercise, while adults take kettle bell, step

(Counterclockwise) The Mount Olivet Baptist Church Fit4Christ dancers at a church picnic at George’s Island Park in Montrose. Sister to Sister International helped open a fitness center in the basement of Kingdom Christian Cultural Center and provided free health screenings.

Photos: Dionne Reid, Minister James Perry

aerobics, and line-dancing classes. The Brother to Brother Men’s Ministry hosted a Health Summit as part of its annual convocation that featured a humorous skit urging men to openly discuss prostate disease.

At the food pantry, health center promotores— volunteer, bilingual counselors—help residents learn about better food choices and healthful recipe makeovers under the guidance of dietitians.

Community health efforts are leading to discussions that cut across medical, political, and social issues. As more families deal with the needs of aging parents, the churches share information about Alzheimer’s and dementia while helping caregivers find resources for themselves and loved ones. Stress reduction is a key to staying healthy, and both churches draw neighbors to wellness programs that include tai chi, yoga, massage, acupuncture, and aromatherapy to be sano y salvo—safe and sound.

“The Zumba class, my container garden, and learning to shop for more nutritious foods changed my life.”

October 2013

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This is the annual “Results” issue of our newsletter For more stories about our grants in New York City, Westchester, and Long Island, see www.nycommunitytrust.org

grants

October 2013 Newsletter

Make your philanthropic dreams come true.

If you’re inspired by the work in these pages, contact Jane Wilton, general counsel, at (212) 686-2563; or Bob Edgar, vice president for donor relations, at (212) 686-2564. www.nycommunitytrust.org

results Inside: Bargain Art Studios Fighting Cyberbullies Healthful Soul Food?

When Good Shepherd Services took over management of Groundwork’s programs, it added room for 273 more young people in its after-school programs (see page 5).