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On September 30, we shared music, champagne, a delicious meal prepared by our very own Soup’s Up team, and the long-awaited pleasure of one another’s company in our senior center “home.”

Greg Morris, who has led us thoughtfully and with passion for the last 7+ years as executive director, toasted the Isaacs Center’s long history of compassion and service, and the important work that lies ahead as we continue to promote dignity and self-reliance across generations of New Yorkers in partnership with Goddard Riverside.

We honored outgoing Isaacs Center board president Richard Nesson and longest-serving board member Gretchen Stone, who have given – and continue to give – their time, expertise, and devotion to our organization for many years.

Damion Samuels, who heads education and workforce development – including the culinary arts training program that prepares vulnerable young adults for sustainable careers – engaged celebrity chef JJ Johnson on leveraging his success to mentor trainees.

Finally, we enjoyed canapés and a beautiful, three-course meal prepared in our kitchen by Chef Cori Boudreaux and the training program grads now employed on our Soup’s Up team.

Thanks to those who attended, sponsored tables, donated, and bid on our silent auction items, we exceeded our fundraising goal, raising $100,000 for programs and services that will help sustain and uplift our neighbors in need.

Thanks…

…to Chef JJ Johnson for donating his time, his cookbook “Between Harlem and Heaven,” and his FIELDTRIP gift certificate for our event and silent auction, and for being an active source of support and employment for our young adults.

…to Our Honorees Richard and Gretchen, who continue to lead us graciously and powerfully

…to the Junior Board for sourcing some seriously fabulous auction items

To the Volunteers who transformed our humble home into an elegant event space for the evening and who welcomed and served our guests with grace

…to the student jazz musicians of Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School High School who dazzled during cocktail hour

…to the Planning Committee – Ashley Higgins Dieck, Marion Hedges, Gail Berry O’Neill, Lee Wareham, and Amy Zeng – you are invaluable to this organization and so much fun to work with

Record your message of thanks to the honorees, board members, staff, and other members of the Isaacs Center family here!

View photos from our Isaacs Family Homecoming!

Thanks to the individual donors and foundations who help fund our work, we were able to meet the increased need triggered by the pandemic and sustained by its economic effects.

With your support, we continue:

Addressing food insecurity

Our Meals on Wheels program provides 7 nutritious, home-delivered meals to more than 2,000 seniors each week. Menus include hot and frozen meals, as well as vegetarian, Latin American, and kosher options. Senior center members can also access meals to “Grab and Go” at our center or enjoy them in our socially distanced dining room. Pantry items are offered weekly, and our Soup’s Up program, which launched this summer, is already serving nearly 200 households with health-conscious, easy-to-prep meal kits.

Serving seniors

Before we reopened our facilities this summer, we provided full, virtual services to more than 2,000 clients, with 1,394 clients receiving case assistance, 135 receiving financial counseling/assistance, 180 receiving healthcare management/assistance, and 867 participating in recreational/educational activities.

With covid-19 precautions in place, our center is now bustling again, with indoor activities like yoga, barre class, table games, and discussion groups. We have at least 2 full-time social workers onsite each day, as well as in-person nursing, health coaching, and technology assistance.

Providing pathways for young adults

Though educational programming was entirely virtual, 8 earned their high-school equivalency, and 20 grade gains were made in reading and math.

Even in a fully remote setting, our culinary arts training program is on track to significantly eclipse every performance target. Our Community Kitchen and Soup’s Up programs employ young adult graduates of this program to support our increased kitchen output.

Our scholarship program helped 18 students pursue a college degree and our mentor program engages recipients with young professionals from our junior board. We are assembling an alumni advisory council to center the voice of the underrepresented job seeker in program development, and launching a managerial apprenticeship so that program alumni can cultivate marketable skills.

We placed 159 participants in jobs.

Supporting school children

Our Beacon after school programs faced multple challenges, including reaching students and families after the onset of the pandemic, engaging children in virtual learning, and dealing with school closures even once students returned to classrooms. Our staff focused heavily on providing social and emotional supports to children and their families.

Events engaged 475 participants, however, and 200 elementary students moved up a grade on time. We are preparing to launch in early 2022 the Jack August Learning Program, a privately-funded, comprehensive, partner-based, multi-year program for children and their families. More details will follow.

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In May 2021, the Stanley M. Isaacs Neighborhood Center (Isaacs Center) entered into a strategic partnership with Goddard Riverside (Goddard) with the purpose of enhancing the services that both organizations provide to New Yorkers. Joining forces with Goddard, at this critical moment in the City’s history, will expand access to economic security and housing stability for thousands of low-income New Yorkers (from Lincoln Square to East Harlem) and support a just and fair recovery for communities most affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

This partnership has been a long time in the making. Since the Isaacs Center was the beneficiary of Morgan Stanley’s pro bono Strategy Challenge program, which assessed the Isaacs Center’s mission and aspirations, and offered insight into sustainability strategies, the board explored opportunities for partnership that would position the organization to create change on local and city-wide level. In Goddard, we found an organization with similar values and vision, whose long history (since the 1800s) and present leadership demonstrates an enduring commitment to serving vulnerable New Yorkers with sensitivity and integrity. Our mutual alliance was made official in May with an eye toward demonstrating efficiency and effectiveness while building the capacity and leverage necessary to influence the City’s ability to improve the lives of vulnerable New Yorkers.

Who is Goddard?

Goddard supports families at every stage of life, serving more than 20,000 people a year on the Upper West Side and throughout New York City. Like the Isaacs Center, Goddard is an active member of the settlement house community. They prioritize dignity and respect, and work within a social justice framework to create a fair and just society where all people have the opportunity to make choices that lead to better lives for themselves and their families.

Dr. Roderick (Rod) Jones has served as Goddard Executive Director since February 2017. Rod grew up in New York City public housing and went into social services, first in Rochester and then in St. Louis. He was named Not-for-Profit Leader of the Year in 2011 by the Regional Chamber of Commerce and The St. Louis American. Rod has a doctorate in Education from St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York and a Master’s in Public Administration from SUNY-Brockport. He sees the role of settlement houses like Goddard and the Isaacs Center as “enabling people to make the best choices they can for themselves and their families.”

What has changed?

The agreement between the Isaacs Center and Goddard allows the Isaacs Center to maintain its independent non-profit status while becoming a membership organization under Goddard. As a subsidiary of Goddard, the Isaacs Center can also offer better benefits and more growth opportunities to its staff, who are essential to our good work and deserving of the best possible compensation.

The Isaacs Center now has a single, corporate board member: Goddard, and its reconstituted board comprises five Goddard board members. Eight of the previous Isaacs Center board members joined the Goddard board, ensuring continuity of governance and oversight. Other previous Isaacs Center board members wishing to continue their service to the Isaacs Center were invited to join Goddard board committees.

During the summer, our administrative offices (human resources, development, finance, and operations) began migrating to Goddard. For these teams, the move to Goddard means a larger staff and access to more resources. The cost savings of combining our respective back office functions are complemented by greater capacity to execute those functions. In the coming months, the senior leaders of Isaacs Center programs will be migrated under the Goddard umbrella to lead the alignment of Goddard and Isaacs Center programs. Isaacs Center Executive Director Gregory J (Greg) Morris will serve under Rod as Chief Program Officer (for both Isaacs Center and Goddard programs).

What stays the same?

Both organizations are maintaining our respective 501c3 designations, meaning that our programs and finances will be kept separate. Importantly, donors who wish to support Isaacs Center programs are welcome to continue to do so. Both donors and volunteers continue to be essential to the programs and services Isaacs Center provides in our community.

In joining forces with Goddard, we will continue our tremendous history of strengthening the communities we serve while we launch collaborative efforts that improve access to economic security and housing stability for New Yorkers in need. We invite you, our Isaacs Center family, to continue that long history with us.

During LGBTQIA+ Pride month, we commemorate the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 and the beginning of the modern Gay Rights movement.  As we honor and celebrate those trailblazing individuals – from Marsha P. Johnson to Dr. Rachel Levine – whose passion and persistence have drawn us closer to full equality, we are called upon to stand in solidarity for the systemic change required to prevent all discrimination and injustice. “The Fight Continues,” the official theme of NYC Pride, reflects the extraordinary contributions of LGBTQ+ New Yorkers and the support of allies to achieve remarkable results since Stonewall- passing of workplace protections and hate crime legislation, and guaranteeing the right to marry to same-sex couples. Yet, only 21 states and the District of Columbia, protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing and public accommodations and a record number of state legislatures proposed anti-LGBTQ laws – many with a specific focus on reducing the rights of transgender people. [According to the Human Rights Campaign, 28 transgender or gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States so far this year, putting 2021 on pace to be one of the worst years on record for anti-trans violence. The victims were overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic trans women.]

As noted by our tremendous guest speaker at today’s Isaacs Center Pride event, David Rothenberg, the intersection of honesty and love makes it possible for each of us to be total human beings, and Pride month is a reminder of what is possible when each of us reaches this intersection and what we hold and what we share is embraced, protected, and celebrated.

This week, President Biden signed legislation to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, and enshrined June 19 as a day to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. While the mammoth impact of slavery on our nation’s history cannot be fully measured in a day, nor the toll that it continues to take be remedied by the signing of one bill, the acknowledgment of this stain on our history by our federal government, and the extraordinary activism, sacrifice, and perseverance of advocates to make Juneteenth possible is a demonstration of our collective potential to become ‘a more perfect’ Union.

Juneteenth is the first new national holiday established since Martin Luther King Day in 1983. To King, “Slavery was perpetuated in America not merely by human badness but also by human blindness.” As we share our first national Juneteenth, it is essential that we reflect on how deeply racism is embedded in American policies and how it still affects education, health care, jobs, housing…

We must continually fight to dismantle these inequitable structures and to implement policies that serve us all. It is the effort we make to call out and confront what is unjust and inequitable that defines us, and it is the commitment we make to struggle and overcome that heals us and brings us hope.