Between the peanut sauce, the crispy chicken, and the honey ginger lemon tea in the air, the dining room smelled like a Thai restaurant The pantry team meticulously set the tables, making sure every seat had its noodles, its herbs, its vegetables, and its proteins. There was a line of members outside the door eager to try Pad Thai with Lemon, the new […]
News
Celebrating Black History Across the Community, and Across All Ages
Even as the children walked in with freshly printed tees saying, “Steppin’ Into Black History,” staff was still putting chairs out into an already crowded dining room. Those who preferred to stand, were careful not to lean into posters telling the story of Muhammad Ali, Rosa Parks, Barak Obama and many others pasted all around the room. The Jack August After School […]
A Visit (and Recipe) with Chef Jeffrey
When Jeffrey Stewart came to the US from Trinidad and Tobago as a young man, he tried out a few different careers. He worked in a bank. He studied social services: “I did two years of child psychology; I did social work and so on,” he said in his gentle Caribbean lilt. “But my heart […]
Culinary Lunch and Urban Agriculture
The Education & Workforce Culinary Program laid out the fine tablecloths and silverware for some special guests when the Mayor’s Office of Urban Agriculture visited in September. The menu was a mix of Americana with some Italian elements, cooked to the quality of any establishment on Restaurant Row. There was skirt steak, meatballs in tomato […]
Learn to Cook Tasty and Healthy
Pizza can be good and healthy, you just have to know how to cook it that way. With that mission in mind, Ms. Alicia Flynn, the instructor of the Nutritionist Cooking Class, laid out the ingredients for her class. The sauce made from scratch had less sodium, the bread baked with less oil, and for those […]
Night Full of Scholarships, A Future of Opportunities
Dozens of students from our Options Center, and Education & Workforce programs were awarded scholarships at a festive event in June to help them pay for school. Our annual scholarships, funded by foundations and private donors, are one of the ways Goddard Riverside and the Stanley M. Isaacs Center invest in people and strengthen community. […]
The Stanley M. Isaacs Center and Goddard Riverside Have Officially Merged
Goddard Riverside and the Isaacs Center merged in June 2025, completing a process that began nearly four years earlier. Since our staffs and programs have already merged, we do not expect any impact on our services. Will programs at the Isaacs Center change or be cut? You won’t see any changes to programs. Since 2022, […]
Member Highlight: Barbara S.
Barbara joined the Isaacs Center in 2014 after retiring from her job as an operations manager. Her ten years as part of the older adults center has given her a new space to thrive as a member of her community—and to help those around her in the process. Barbara is the current president of the […]
Reimagining the Isaacs Center
On any given day at the Isaacs Older Adult Center, you will find members talking on the front benches, enjoying a delicious, affordable lunch, or taking one of the many classes available. Yet membership has not been the same since the pandemic. While new people have begun coming to the Isaacs Center since the pandemic, […]
Congratulations CLIMB Students!
The students of our Education and Workforce CLIMB program celebrated the end of their intensive 20-week program earlier this month with a commencement and showcase. While not the first cohort at the Isaacs Center, this is the first group to graduate as part of our new partnership with the Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN). The program […]