Doing Good: Weekly Updates from the Brooklyn Community Foundation
We are pleased to share with you the just-published Brooklyn Recovery Fund Report to the Community, a view into the Brooklyn Community Foundation's response to Superstorm Sandy.
Last week, as we near the halfway point of an important election year, we asked you what you’re looking for in a new leader for Brooklyn in 2014. This week, we want you to think about Brooklyn in 2050.
This week, we’re thinking ahead. It’s a transition year for our city and borough. Soon we’ll be electing a new mayor and a new borough president, and with them, potentially, new visions for our communities. So we’re wondering: what are you looking for in a leader for Brooklyn?
This week marks an inauspicious anniversary: six months since Superstorm Sandy.
Join us May 15th as we launch an exciting new monthly event series featuring stories and conversation from Brooklyn's innovative entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders.
Last week, we wrote about the remarkable recovery underway along the Coney Island boardwalk. As the summer season approaches, we’re confident that Brooklyn’s most unique business district will return to full form after Superstorm Sandy. But we remain concerned with the fate of the community’s year-round residents, for whom the storm was another blow in an already difficult life.
With doubts now silenced, we want to share with you why we think Coney Island’s boardwalk recovery is a sign of what makes our borough special, and why strong communities are critical in times of crisis.
Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing stories from the recovery. Sandy’s toll was different in each of our communities, and therefore the speed and extent of the recovery has been different for each—and different within each. The story for residents is not the same as businesses, and likewise for renters compared to homeowners.
It’s official—spring has finally arrived in Brooklyn. At least that’s what the calendar says. But we’re certain Brooklynites will soon be outside enjoying the warm weather and rejuvenated borough. Spring brings new life and energy to the city, along with many volunteer opportunities and chances to give back to our community.
When we launched the Brooklyn Bureau with City Limits in early 2012, we hoped the news site would tell the personal stories of Brooklynites too often unheard. And when Superstorm Sandy crashed into our coastline last fall, we knew the Bureau’s reporters would get the story right—and stay on it through the months to follow.
Look around you and it’s easy to see that Brooklyn is growing—our population, our skyline, our reputation in the world. With the rapid pace of change, no one can predict what our borough will look like in 50 years. But we can predict who will lead us there.
This week, as we spring our clocks forward and say fuhgettaboutit to the last snowflakes of winter, we can’t help but feel excited. We’re anxious to get back into our borough’s beautiful gardens, farms, and parks, to sow new seeds and help make Brooklyn bloom.
“We have this winter to do it right, but time is running out. Once the spring comes, the mold is going to be the next storm that hits us.”
It’s the last Friday of February—a month we’ve dedicated to honoring our partner nonprofit organizations and the essential services they provide that are making Brooklyn better throughout. And for many Brooklynites, there is no greater service than those that teach, mentor, guide, and motivate. So last but certainly not least, we are spreading our Brooklyn Love for the organizations of our Education & Youth Achievement Fund, particularly those that help tell the story of our borough as we also honor Black History Month.
For the third installment of our month of spreading #BrooklynLove (yes we even created a Twitter hashtag), we are highlighting the local organizations dedicated to the health and wellness of our neighbors and our neighborhoods.
Continuing a month of spreading love for Brooklyn’s nonprofit community, this week we’re recognizing the work of organizations dedicated to making our borough greener and healthier for all.
In honor of the forthcoming holiday, all month long we’re paying tribute to the borough we love by celebrating our valentines—the nonprofit organizations doing their part to make Brooklyn a better home for all.
This week, we’re thrilled to announce that the Foundation is one of just 13 in the country to receive a 2012 National Innovation Fund grant. The $150,000 award from the Convergence Partnership supports our work to build a network of healthy food and healthy living strategies in public housing communities in Brooklyn, specifically in Red Hook, Fort Greene, and Brownsville.
Encompassing the eastern half of Bedford-Stuyvesant and sections of Crown Heights and Brownsville, Community School District 16 is repeatedly among the worst performing school districts in New York City. But now there’s a blueprint for change in CSD16, and it starts with school collaboration, closing the disparity gap in after-school services, and engaging parents as key stakeholders.
Seventy days after the storm, for most Brooklynites, life is getting back to normal. But for many others, the struggles of living in post-Sandy Brooklyn remain, and intensify.