Sunnyside Community Services is a non-profit organization in Queens, NY. I have known about this organization since I was in high school. Every year, especially around the holidays, we would collect food for the food drive that would then be delivered to the center, which was only a few blocks away from the school. This non-profit organization is known by almost everyone in the community because it includes services for everyone, from a child to a senior. Once, I walk in a volunteer named Singh, provided me assistance, so I ask him, how do the people that come to the center know about the services that are given every week? He stated, “We actually have a website where you can sign up for a newsletter about our services and the programs that are provided that week.” Their mission which was told by one of the volunteers there to, “strengthen their community by providing a continuum of vital services that enrich the lives of people of all ages”. Being at the center for a few minutes I was able to tell that they were doing exactly that because they had programs for every age such as tutoring and teaching seniors how to use a computer. To gather more information about the non-profit organization I went to the center and talked with one of the volunteers. I was curious, so I ask one of the volunteer’s named John, about if this community is so far how would the people get here. He responded with “Yes our mission is to provide services for everyone. For those individuals that are not able to come because of how far it is or because they are unable to walk, we provide buses from their homes to the center. One just has to give us a call to provide these services.” A thought came to my mind and I ask him when has this organization started. He stated, “I learned that it was actually established as a senior center first in 1974, Then they began introducing youth services in 1983. Each year the organization has provided services for about 14,000 people.” They have and are still providing educational enrichment to children, teens and to college students. For the adults, they provide English for Speakers of Other Languages and course Home Health Aide Training. For the seniors, the non-profit organization offers 30 fitness, arts, educational and recreational activities each week.

The seniors enjoy being here and you can tell once you step a foot in the center. They’re smiling and talking to each other while eating the nutritious food the organization provides for them.

Year after year the united states gets an overflow of immigrants from around the globe weather its refugees tourist or illegal immigrants trying to start fresh with an abundance of opportunity to fulfill.But how do they get the befits they need? some immigrants do not know the befits they could acquire in this country and take control off.Thats where Hope Brooklyn comes immigration Brooklyn is a non profitable organization located in Bay ridge it started as a very small work organization in 2004 exclusively.

Taking in Middle Eastern customers at the time due to the massive outrage happening in the middle east with tons of refugee flowing in to theUnited states of America the organizations goal at the time was to provide for the overflowing refugees with social security,food stamps and many more government befits provided by New York city as the Immigration Hope was starting out just getting on its feet.While  the situation in the Middle East was getting drastically worse and worse with more overflowing refugees from all around the middle east started to flow in New York city and eventually had a massive impact on immigration Hope around 2007 thats when they decided to branch out even more the company’s man goal was to provide for immigrants form the middle east but since they expanded the organization drastically they made the decision to expand further and bigger which ultimately led to a bold decision to open up the company even more with having different ethnicity and cutlers from around the world in 2012 they have changed the organization to open up to different races and immigrants from around the world including Hispanics,Asians,South Americans to have a chance at acquiring social security and other benefits provided for them and have an equal voice as the rest of the Americans Immigration Hope is still standing strong constantly busy and providing the needed in ways they never thought they could get.

One of the best non-profit organizations that I found  around my neighborhood is ABBR Empowering People With disabilities, located in 1508 College Point Blvd, College Point, NY. Founded over 62 years ago by just a group of people that wanted to advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves. Working with 1,000 idividuals with disabilities across New  York City and Long Island this non-profit organization’s goal is to reach out people with any type of disability in their life and help them become part of their  family organization by offering them medical service coordinators 24/7, adult day programs, family services, therapist, food meals, Educational activities, fun activities including painting, photography, dance, and cooking. – Trips to museums, athletic events, movies, concerts, the theater, and more. ABBR has also founded the NYCLI “ Founded in 1994 as a non-public school for children with autism, NYCLI is now recognized as a preeminent school in New York State. A replica of the Princeton Child Development Institute, NYCLI has been well-documented to produce educational and treatment gains that enable many of our learners to acquire language, social and academic skills comparable to their peers.” The way that this non-profit organization raise money is by the government and donations from $50 and higher amounts through their online website  (https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/aabr) and sales they have at street fairs or food sales. Also the ABBR offers Internships for any person that would like to volunteer to their organization and Job opportunities for Social workers, Residential Managers, etc. This organization is doing a great job because people that are being helped by this organization seem very happy, they no longer feel alone, or unwanted. 

After searching throughout my neighborhood, I have found and chosen the NAMI non-profit organization to conduct my interview. This organization has bases in Queens, Long Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island, with also many various locations in the nation. Their headquarters is located in Arlington, Virginia; their motto is as stated, “You are not alone.” NAMI stands for National Alliance on Mental Illness. To start off my phone interview, I was connected to Ruairi at the Jamaica, Queens location. Ruairi is one of the volunteers at the site and picks up calls from the helpline. Ruairi described to me, that in the midst of consoling many people it is an “eye-opening experience”, due to the vast majority of people he has seen get help and the complexity of the system that matches the complex spectrum of mental health issues. According to Ruairi, “NAMI raises awareness for mental illness and erases the stigma that comes with it, while also providing mental health services.” This includes support groups for individuals struggling with mental health issues and their families. They also raise awareness by organizing activities such as walks, providing intervention programs and, by commemorating mental health months and weeks. He also, in fact, stated that this non-profit organization operates and receives funding through again, the walks but, also donations, foundations, and lastly, corporations. Lastly, to end off the interview, Ruairi reinstated that this is an organization that does not discriminate against anyone or anyone’s illness. They provide a wide range of services for mental illnesses and related conditions: ADHD, Anxiety Disorders, Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Dissociative Disorders, Eating Disorders, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia, Anosognosia, Dual Diagnosis, Psychosis, Self-harm, Sleep Disorders, and Suicide. After interviewing and taking into consideration everything this foundation has done, especially in the era we live in today and, with only about “ fewer than ten volunteers” according to Ruairi, which was the case at his location. They and the other mental illness organizations have made major impacts and play a big role in the mental health community and society today. Although, it can be still seen as a taboo in many cultures and customs to speak about these things such as asking for help, suicide, and therapy. This nonprofit uses preeminent tactics to shatter these beliefs, remove the stigma, and normalize the need for help, especially for those who struggle with disorders on a daily basis.

So the non-profit I chose was the Swim Strong foundation. It is a non-profit organization that focus on bringing the skill of swimming to every day people for extremely cheap. They often award scholarship for swimming classes because there mission is to provide swimming classes to everyday people no matter who or what there situation is. As they often say swimming is a life skill that will maintain with you for life. Not only that they often promote local swimming competitions and other swimming organizations. They offer classes to any age group, starting from 3 years old all they way up too how ever old your willing to come in. They specialize in many different people, such as people who are scared of the water children and special needs. They work in many local pools in many different boroughs in order to make sure you have a local meeting place for pools because in New York it’s pretty hard to find cheap pools classes that often don’t break the bank. They have once a year were they open up the pools to people and teach them cpr water saftey as well as free lessons for a whole week at all of their location. Compared to other swimming programs they offer some of the best pricing per classes as well as set in amazing pools you would never think exist in the area. I personally work for this non profit and to teach people how to swim is amazing. Most kids and some adult qualify for the scholarship allowing many to take the class for free, teaching them a skill they will always remember. They are a small non profit not big as well as have small classes because they believe in smaller classes gives you more of a 1 on 1 things that aren’t often hard to find cheap now a days. Just for comparison a private swimming lesson can cost in new work around $40-$150 an hour and  about $300 for 8 classes or getting the scholarship. They will at time host local competition or help you train or refine your skills as well as have Olympic swimmer come to teach some skills they many will have to pay thousands to get. They often try to reach out to the community trying to get them involve with the programs as well give back as well. Drowning is the number one water based deaths in the world, more people die of drowning then anything else. So learning how to swim and the do’s and don’t is number one for them because not many people know what they should do in water situations.

           The non-profit organization that I chose was the Whole Planet Foundation by WholeFoods. The organization helps collect money to help people world wide to sell their products in local WholeFoods. They’ll sell hand made woven baskets and hand made candles of their own. I’ve seen the rugs and clothes that many of the entrepreneurs make and are credited for when the item is sold. They help the less fortunate make money for themselves by giving them a loan to run their own business. Many of the entrepreneurs are female and make the most out come for their families. For example Delia from Paraguay has her own masonry business that the Whole Planet helped to start by giving her a loan. By doing that her business not only grew but she was able to help her community and the unemployed by giving them jobs. Also, help by supporting her family in the struggling poverty control in her country. The foundation can do more than that though to help the world more. Instead of just distributing their products at only WholeFoods markets they should try and sell their products elsewhere. They can sell them at other supermarkets like KeyFood, Trader Joe’s, or Shoprite.  By doing this it’ll help increase their profit and spread their work. Also, they could bring it to local farmers markets that come around during the season. They should also integrate with other countries supermarket. This will help the growing businesses grow more and go international with their product. There aren’t many meetings to attend but the one that did happen was about how to keep pushing their product forward to be sold. Not only by the sale that’s happening but the importance of the season. The products are all at a constant rotation and helpful to the need of the season. There products are also sold at bit higher price than regular items because they cost out the total to send it back to the company. If the company can visit the entrepreneurs more to give advice will also be helpful. They visit yearly but should visit at least every six moths to keep in check on the growing business to see if they need anything for it. This foundation gives a lot of supports to it’s entrepreneurs and makes them in control of their lives. And their making all the choices for their family and benefiting their community.

I decided to make my blog post about the nonprofit organization that is “Big Brother Big Sisters of America”. They are a nonprofit organization that provides mentoring for kids to help them reach their full potential in life. They are available with their services across the United States of America. (Hence the name). I spoke with a friend of mine and got in contact with their friend who is the executive director of the program in her hometown of Logansport, Indiana. I interviewed Rebecca M over the phone to get the inside info of what she does and how it ties in with the values of the program. In her case, she multitasks with both background and foreground work. She helps out with the pairings of the siblings. She does the intensive background check of the mentors to make sure everything checks out clearly to clear them to be in the program. She also helps out with fundraisers to bring awareness to what the program is complaining. As well as getting funds to allow the program to continue to change the lives of those kids. I asked her what about her job she loves the most. She loves how it is fulfilling. It keeps her happy knowing she is helping out the community and changing the future lives of the kids. It warms her heart knowing she is doing good.

I chose the Christodora organization, they are located In the Bronx, Manhattan and Massachusetts. Christodora is a Non-profit organization that is based on nature conservation and helping inner city children get a feel for nature and how to be away of the natural environment and to keep Earth green. So I interviewed this non-profit organization through via email to a woman named Judith Rivkin who is the executive director of Christodora. Judith had worked for other non-profit organizations but didn’t have her desired position until encountering Christodora with prior experience in management. The proudest moment that Judith has had she said ‘ My proudest moments are when students or their families tell us that we have made a positive difference in their lives.” Judith’s main job description is to carry out a strategic set of tasks to run by Board of Directors and raising funds for the programs that are intertwined with Christodora as well as maintaining a balance in each aspect of the programs activities so that Christodora is functioning as a whole. Overall this was Judith’s last job and will retire in a few years but this is her dream job and didn’t give up to get to her goals. Judith emphasizes that ‘Christodora stresses the 3Rs with our students: Respect- respect yourself so that you can also respect others. Responsibility- be responsible to yourself and to your team. Risk – learn how to assess risks and take green light positive risks in your life, do what’s necessary to meet yellow light challenging risks, and steer clear of Red light negative risks.” In life we should all take risks but with proper guidance and responsibility as well as outside support to help us make perfect life decisions to affect ourselves and those around us positively. Christodora is a major learning experience with learning during camping trips, going to saturday and sunday to New York Botanical Garden NYC (New Youth Conservationists) programs to help middle school students to be exposed to nature and science/plant based experiments. But these programs help students succeed at critical thinking, problem solving and communications skills during an emergency, or being the leader of the hiking group for a day, or being in an office trying to express your opinions and facts in a respectful straight to the point manor. Most importantly, the reason that lead me to choose this organization is that Christodora helps the students to step out of their comfort zone and try new things and succeed. Once you have taken that step to get out in the world and explore, you can go anywhere.

The local nonprofit organization I chose in the Staten Island urban center. The organization is ran by a woman named Kelly Vilar. I had the pleaser of working for the Urban center and Mrs. Vilar last year. I attended a meeting in which Kelly Vilar explained to me and about twenty other people what her vision is and what she is planning to accomplish. Mrs. Vilar stated that “our mission is to inspire and educate and work with youth to better our communities”. From experience working with the Staten Island Urban Center for more than a year I worked with tons of kids. We helped with kids express themselves and helped them through tough times at home. Overall trying to better the youth for a brighter future. One major thing the Urban Center is trying to have Cromwell rebuilt. Cromwell is a sports center that use to be built near the Staten island ferry but due to hurricanes and other such thing the old building collapsed.  This was a very big loss for the community’s youth as this is where they’d spend a lot of their time. It was filled with basketball courts, a full track, swimming pools and other such things. Kelly has gotten the rebuild project approved by the city of New York, though the city is taking its time to get it accomplished. Kelly Vilar has gone as far to meet with mayor Bill de Blasio about this being accomplished. She has the full support from the mayor to get this done and build it for the youth of New York. Mrs. Vilar also this will also create more jobs for people in the area of the Staten Island ferry. I feel that Mrs. Kelly Vilar is doing everything she can for the youth. She holds after school for students they can get help with their homework and also teach some kids how to play an instrument. Overall the urban center has had nothing but a positive impact on both the people of the community and the community its self. If Kelly Vilar keeps doing what she’s doing she is going to change more then just her community she is going to change the future for all the kids and people she has helped and will help in the coming years. Kelly her self wants nothing but whats best for these kids. She wants to help them shape their future for the better.

The local non-profit organization I’ve chosen is called Children of promise NYC. The organization was founded by Sharon Content in 2009. She has personal experience in her parents getting incarcerated, she noticed that there was a lack of support in helping other kids that were going through the same situation as she did. The organization main goal is to help the young children whose parents are incarcerated to not end up the same way as their parents, to push them to get educated and to have a positive future that leads to success. Since 2009 CPNYC (Children of promise NYC) have helped over 1,500 children.In 2013 CPNYC helped the children get in contact with there parents that are incarcerated via mail, and this will help every week. So far they have raised 5 million dollars which helped them hire more staff which led to being able to help more children. With the money raised they also added more programs to help push the children and so they can enjoy what they are learning. CPNYC is supported by big companies such as HBO, Kohl’s, Star Bucks, New York Nets, and about 55 other organizations. First thing the organization can approve on is to train educate the employees of what the organization has to offer to the families who need help. Employees didn’t seem as if they knew one hundred percent the programs they had to offer. I thought I was the only one that experienced this situation but I also read reviews online of other customers experiencing similar situations. Another thing to help increase the organization work is to open new facilities in Manhattan, queens or possibly in a different state so they can reach other kids around the state or country. While expanding their message will also reach different cities , and help thousands of more kids. But this is a long term goal because it would take while to open more facilities around the country and be able to raise the amount of money needed to begin the goal. My opinion about this organization CPNYC is that it has progressed rapidly since the beginning, they first served about 150 children/ families ,and now they serve around 600 children/families. Plus with the money they have raised they are definitely putting it into good use, but to me it’s very important to spread their message not just in New York but around the country to help thousands of other children who suffer from parental incarceration.