Deputy Mayor Richard Buery, Commissioner Bill Chong, and Council Member Vanessa Gibson visited Lower Eastside Girls Club to view the DYCD afterschool SONYC Program for Women’s History Month. The LES Girls Club provides a safe space for middle and high school girls to learn and grow in the arts and sciences. Mentoring, wellness, arts, and academic support and career training programs share space with community programming, STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts and Math) initiatives, and environmental advocacy. The LES Girls Club encourages young woman to enter into male-dominated fields. Thank you to the Executive Director Lyn Pentecost and Ebonie Simpson for giving us a tour of the Planetarium, Design Studio, BioBase, and more! Check out our Facebook page to watch the tour of this amazing facility and to view images of the programs.

On April 12, DYCD Commissioner Chong joined First Lady Chirlane McCray on Staten Island for a visit to a DYCD-funded Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) residential program run by Project Hospitality. Mental health services are now available for young people in the program thanks to the First Lady’s ThriveNYC initiative. City-funded RHY services include Drop-in Centers, Crisis Shelters, Transitional Independent Living programs, and Street Outreach and Referral Services. We also fund specialized programming for runaway and homeless young people who are pregnant and parenting, sexually-exploited, and LGBTQ.

On April 15, hundreds of New Yorkers stopped by their local Cornerstone Community Centers for one of six Spring into Health Fairs organized by DYCD and other City agencies and held in all five boroughs. The day of activities engaged local community-based organizations and other community partners and provided medical screenings, lifestyle information, physical activities, and health-related demonstrations. The fairs were an inter-agency effort to address health disparities in our City, and to help ensure that New Yorkers have access to important health-related information and that service providers are aware of other resources in their community for referrals.

Thursday, April 20, 2017 – Sunday, April 23, 2017, 11:00am – 6:00pm
Brooklyn Prospect Park
Bartel Pritchard Circle Lot, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Free, ages 10 and up
This Is Hunger is a powerful and interactive exhibit, housed in a big rig, that takes you on a journey—one that that will challenge your beliefs about who in America struggles with hunger and why, and inspire you to take action. Parents, at their discretion, are welcome to bring children of all ages to visit the truck as a family. This Is Hunger is a 45-minute timed-entry experience. Please be advised that this is a museum environment and includes a 14-minute audio-visual experience during which guests will be asked to sit quietly. Visit the eventbrite page to reserve a timed ticket.

Saturday, April 22, 2017, 10:30am
Central Park
Central Park West and West 64th Street, New York, NY
Free for all ages
March for Science NYC is a New York based nonprofit that is focused on building bridges between New York’s Scientific and nonscientific communities. The purpose of this march is to show support for publicly funded science and scientists. This march event will take place in the Upper West Side of Manhattan on April 22, 2017 and move south. Everyone in the community is invited to come together on this day and show the world how much New Yorkers love and support Science! Groups are encouraged—anyone from official organizations, and school clubs to scout troops, dance squads, book clubs, and sports teams—to register as Marching Science Advocates and march proudly with your own banner telling the world that you love and support science! For route details and registration, please visit donyc.com.

Saturday, April 22, 2017, 10:00am – 4:00pm
Broadway between Times Square and Union Square, New York, NY
Free for all ages
In celebration of Earth Day, the NYC Department of Transportation will create six car-free zones on Broadway, from Union Square to Times Square. Each zone will include, arts, sports, or educational activities. Check nyc.gov for more details, in addition to planned street closings in upper Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx.

Saturday, Aprill 22, 2017, 11:00am – 5:00pm
Tompkinsville Park
Bay Street, Victory Boulevard, Staten Island, NY 10301
Free for all ages
St. George Day is a unique festival that promotes peaceful problem solving, communal pride, and sharing and respecting our natural resources as essential elements to a strong and sustainable community. Through art, Earth Day activities, and the Dragon Parade, participants to facilitate strong community connections to Tompkinsville Park. For more information about this event, please visit the festival’s website.

Sunday, April 23, 2017, 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Sunset Park Recreation Center
4200 7th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11232
Free for all ages
Celebrate Mother Earth in Sunset Park! NYC Parks, Brooklyn Recreation, Redhawk Native American Arts Council, and the Sunset Park Recreation Center come together to present this fun-filled Powwow featuring indigenous music, dance, and art and crafts from North America, South America, Hawaii and the Caribbean. This event will be held on the plaza in front of the Center, and will be moved inside in the instance of inclement weather. Please visit NYC Parks for more information.

Saturday, April 29, 2017, 11:00am – 3:00pm
Thomas Jefferson Park
114th Street and First Avenue, New York, NY 10029
Free for all ages
NYC Parks and the Walt Disney Company will host the 10th Annual Street Games. Street Games celebrates the classic street games from the ’60s and ’70s and introduces them to a new generation of kids with a modern spin! Street Games is also more than just games. Local radio stations will be spinning music all day and there will be live music and entertainment, including several performances by the Dance Theater of Harlem. For a complete list of this year’s games, please visit NYC Parks.

Currently through Sunday, April 30, 2017
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11225
Few events herald the birth of spring like a shower of luminous pink petals falling softly from hundreds of cherry trees. Cherry-blossom viewing, known as hanami, is a centuries-old Japanese custom, a springtime occasion for merriment and the contemplation of life’s beauty and transience. You can partake in this tradition at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, home to scores of flowering varieties for public enjoyment. Guided tours focusing on the blooms are held on Wednesdays during the April viewing season, though the more-frequent garden highlights tours will touch on them as well. The month culminates in celebration of the brilliant blooms with Sakura Matsuri, a festival of Japanese performances and cultural happenings, on April 29 and 30. For more details, visit bbg.org.

The Edward & Ellen Roche Relief Foundation was established in 1953 to support organizations serving disadvantaged women and children. Specifically, funding will be provided to nonprofits that help ensure the well-being and self-sufficiency of low-income women and their families. Recognizing the diverse array of programs that serve these populations, the Roche Relief Foundation has chosen to focus its limited resources on programs that serve the following populations:

• Unemployed or underemployed women
• Immigrants
• Victims of domestic or sexual violence

• Financial assistance and counseling
• Job training and placement
• Comprehensive support services to a distinct disadvantaged population

The Harry S. Black & Allon Fuller Fund was established in 1930 to support quality health care and human services programming for underserved populations. The grantmaking focus is in the following areas:

• The Fund supports access to health care; health education; and health policy analysis and advocacy. Emphasis will be placed on programs serving low-income communities.
• The Fund supports access programs for physically disabled individuals; disability policy analysis and advocacy; workforce development programs; and programs that improve quality of life for the disabled.

Families deserve an opportunity to provide their children with high-quality education without sinking into debt. Likewise, students deserve to spend their years in college unburdened by the worry of paying off loans after graduation. With these concerns in mind, Global Teletherapy is proud to help defray the rising costs of higher education. Global Teletherapy is offering any current college or graduate school student who understands what it means to accept responsibility to improve his or her community the opportunity to earn a $1,000 merit-based scholarship. The scholarship will be awarded to the winner of their essay contest. All eligible students, regardless of major, are encouraged to apply by May 15, 2017. For eligibility requirements and additional details, please visit globalteletherapy.com.

Flowmetrics is pleased to announce their annual $1,000 general science and engineering scholarship. If you are a currently enrolled student at an accredited college you are eligible and encouraged to apply. The deadline to enter this annual scholarship is July 1, 2017. Please note that you will not receive notice of confirmation upon submitting your application and the winner will be notified via email by August 1, 2017. To apply please complete the form provided on the Flowmetrics website and submit a minimum 1,000 word essay about your academic goals and your ambitions after graduation. Your essay should include details about why you should be awarded this scholarship and how it would impact your life if you were to win.

MyBioSource is not only a supporter of students pursuing degree in the science fields but to all students in general who are working hard to obtain a higher education. With that, MyBioSource is honored to offer a scholarship program for all other majors outside of S.T.E.M (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). With this scholarship, students will be able to have MyBioSource help them with the costs of necessities that come with getting a greater education. The candidate must be enrolled as a freshman, undergraduate or graduate student at an accredited college or university for the 2017 Fall semester. To apply, complete the application by June 30, 2017 along with a 250 word response on why you have chosen your intended college major and why you should receive the scholarship. For more information on the MyBioSource Scholarship, please visit mybiosource.com.

Looking for an afterschool program in your neighborhood? Need information on improving reading skills or finding the nearest community center? The web application discoverDYCD allows you to search in multiple languages for DYCD-funded programs. You can search by borough, neighborhood or zip code, and discoverDYCD provides contact information, activities offered, and a mapping feature with navigation.
Categories of services include: Afterschool Programs, Family Support, Literacy Services, Youth Services and so much more! We hope you find discoverDYCD useful as you take advantage of the diverse resources and opportunities that New York City has to offer.