We raised $526 for The Greenpoint Soup Kitchen & Food Pantry, a local organization that feeds hundreds of hungry Greenpointers. Today they are busy making over 30 turkeys for homeless and hungry neighbors.
If you couldn’t make it out to the fundraiser on Sunday, why not make a donation in any amount to this important organization at this very special time of year.
Local artist Hannah Simmons and Greenpointers Market coordinator Yuka Miyata are fundraising to bring an important art project to children in an area of Japan that is still recovering from the 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami. It’s call NYC Art X Sweet Treat 311 and we created this video to help get the message out.
Tonight the folks at Cafe Edna (195 Nassau Ave) are hosting a fundraiser for the duo from 7-10pm. All drink profits will be donated to the cause, plus free mini burritos (while supplies last). Also there will be Japanese oldies music, raffles, prizes, gifts and the chance to write a message to the children in Ogatsu that will be delivered personally when the women head to Japan to realize their project.
Yuka Miyata, Greenpointers’ market coordinator and local artist Hannah Simmons are working on a project to bring an art making workshop to children in Ogatsu, Japan, whose 90 year old school was rebuilt after the Earthquake there in 2011. The plan is to work with kids to create a sculpture for the school, which will reopen this Fall.
This Sunday July 6th from noon-5pm there will be a Bike Wash Fundraiser at Brooklyn Moto Club (215 No. 15th St) to help raise money for their cause.
There are few better ways to spend a Sunday afternoon in the spring than meeting your friends at a sweet bar in the neighborhood to have a few drinks. Such an act becomes even more awesome when it benefits an outstanding cause, like fighting Parkinson’s Disease. April is National Parkinson’s Awareness month, after all, so why not?
My fellow Greenpointers, I cordially invite you to meet me just south of the Greenpoint border this Sunday 4/6 at 3pm at Good Co Bar (10 Hope St) in Williamsburg to toast to spring (the sun is supposed to be out!) and help me rid the world of Parkinson’s Disease. Continue reading →
As a product of the NYC Public Education system and an art lover, I am excited to let you know about a Benefit for Public School Art Programs, taking place at Wythe Hotel (80 Wythe Ave) tomorrow February 25, 2014 at 8pm.
Kids need art, and we all know that art programs are underfunded. This article on the importance of art in child development from PBS.org cites that, “art education strengthens problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. The experience of making decisions and choices in the course of creating art carries over into other parts of life.”
And according to a report by the Center for Arts Education in NYC, “in schools with the lowest graduation rates, where arts could have had the greatest impact – students have the least opportunity to participate in arts learning.”
Our wonderful Yana hosted a Salo Pop-Up Dinner at Sindicato Cocineros in Greenpoint on Monday to raise money for typhoon disaster relief and Bedford and Bowery made this short video about it – paying special attention to the pig hearts that were served. Mind the after school special narration and enjoy gorgeous Yana and her beautifully prepared Philippino food! You may also recognize a lot of Greenpointers in the video…PETER!
No Light No Lycra, the weekly dancing in the dark party at Lutheran Church of the Messiah (129 Russell St) is having a special group show benefit on December 14th, 2013 to benefit Common Ground, a homeless outreach program. Tickets are only $7! (in advance), $10 at the door.
100% of ticket sales will be donated!
BANDS
Luke Temple (of Here We Go Magic)
Jo Schornikow (of Phosphoresent)
Woodsman
Laura & Greg
Single Ben
Eastern Midwestern
& DJ Pumpkin Patch
Raf Delalande (guest artist who just arrived yesterday from France!), Rob Banks and Rachel Hauer will be tattooing their own flash pieces ranging from $50 ‘charms’ to $150 flowers/other stuff and donating the proceeds to Threads for Teens from 10am to 1pm.
Duke Riley’s Project Manager Kitty Joe, an awesome Greenpointer, wrote in to let us know about this charity that her niece Allyson Ahlstrom started in 2011 when she was 14. Allyson runs a boutique in Windsor, California that welcomes teens in foster care and cases of extreme poverty to ‘shop’ for free in an upscale boutique. The project started out simply to satisfy 10 hours of required community service through her school. After graduating from high school in May, she outfitted a 62′ trailer as a mobile boutique and is currently on the third leg of her 48 state tour of the country, making daily stops in cities to distribute clothing to deserving teens recommended by social agencies. Continue reading →
IS318 Students Laura Arroyo (left) & Tamia Dantzler (right)
My breakfast in high school was Manhattan Special and a bag of cheetos. For lunch I’d eat a bagel or an ice cream sandwich. By 5th period, I was starving and I’d scrounge around in my backpack for a few quarters to buy M&Ms that a student in the next row was selling – in order to fundraise for the school.
Obviously Health Ed. classes didn’t sink in, and fundraising just meant a sugar rush, but among other amazing programs, the school did have a great after school program. I learned some of life’s most important lessons on the basketball court. And during the off season, when I wasn’t shooting hoops, I was out getting into trouble and eating Wendy’s.
Yesterday I met with Tamia Dantzler and Laura Arroyo, students of IS318 in Williamsburg, who with the guidance of Greenpointer Jane Pool, have organized a fundraiser this Sunday June 23rd from 6-9pm at Brooklyn Bowl (61 Wythe Ave) called “Bring Back The Music,” in order to raise money for their after school program, which has been the victim of recent city budget cuts.
While elected officials create tax abatements for high rise buildings on the water front, funding for public schools has been taken away.
“Selling candy bars is not enough,” Tamia said, who receives homework help after school and whose grades have improved because of the program.
IS318 has received a lot of attention because of its brilliant chess team. A documentary called Brooklyn Castle, “tells the stories of five members of the chess team at a below-the-poverty-line inner city junior high school that has won more national championships than any other in the country.” IS318 is that school.
IS318 Chess Team's Decade of Championship Banners
Walking down the hallway seeing championship banner after banner shows year after year of success, confidence and team building that will impact these students for the rest of their lives.
Not only is the chess team’s funding gone, but after school activities like basketball, art, math, science and music for students like Tamia and Laura are affected by the budget cuts, too.
“It’s a big deal. This is our school. This is our future. We can’t have a bright future without a good education,” Laura said.
And without an after school program, Tamia said she’d be “at home bored to death struggling with homework.”
Laura added that without it, “most kids go home, watch TV, hang out and do nothing productive.”
From Left: Jane Pool, Laura Arroyo, Tamia Dantzler, Valerie Keignstein
Jane Pool, a school mother, who described herself as a former “hardcore punk rock chick” who used to book bands for shows, uses her organization skills now to produce fundraisers for local organizations like OSA. She has wholeheartedly made it her mission, not just to fundraise on behalf of IS318, but to give the students the tools and know how to understand the issues and to organize this upcoming event themselves.
“This is a good age to get real about stuff, ” she said tearing up while looking at the girls and describing how inspiring and how she has “learned a lot from them,” during this process.
“I didn’t know I was going to care that much about the kids,” Jane said.
Jane’s care and support has in turn been uplifting for the students.
“We understand how to think. The group matured a lot. We learned how to act professionally to get things done. We learned how to write a proposal, kids our age don’t know how to write proposals,” Laura said.
Tamia said, “This is the most exciting thing in my life so far!”
Sunday’s benefit at Brooklyn Bowl will surely be exciting with performances by Assemblyman Joe Lentol and Council Member Stephen Levin as well as the school band, the guitar ensemble, Newtown Creek Ramblers and the Jazz Band, which formed because of Sunday’s concert.
Valerie Keingstein, the schools incoming PTA President, whose son is in the newly formed Jazz Band said that the kids show up at 7am to practice 5 days a week, a period called double zero period, and her son is anxious to be there by 6:45am every morning.
This “culture of caring” at the school, as Jane described it, really shows.
“This is an amazing school that is trying to help kids stay active and focused in school so they don’t have to worry about a lot of struggles in life,” Tamia said.
If you do one this weekend, come out to “Bring Back the Music,” this Sunday at Brooklyn Bowl and support the students of IS318’s after school program. It’s $10 for adults and $5 for kids.
We have a choice to make. These students are the future of our city and will soon be making decisions about the world we live in. It is our responsibility to support them, even when our own city government decides not to.
As Jane put it, “this is a real fork in the road time for these kids.” After school can be an enriching time that will help these young people grow into happy and successful New Yorkers. It’s up to us to help them get there.
If you can’t make it to the event Sunday, consider making a donation directly to IS318 now via paypal.
On Thursday,April 4th, 2013 from 7-10pm at Brooklyn Brewery (79 No. 11th St) – The Brooklyn Kitchen & The Brooklyn Grange present The 4th Annual Meatball Slapdown. For $50, taste the balls of the bestest chef’s in NYC then watch as celebrities judge the balls – all for Kids! All proceeds go to Classrooms in the Kitchen!& City Growers!
