Giving Tuesdays: Henry Street Settlement
Giving Tuesday Redefined.
Highlighting non-profit organizations doing great things.
We are committed to uplifting the voices of our community and that not only means telling their story through our brands partner, but giving back in a meaningful way. In honor of November representing the month of thanksgiving and supporting the local community, we wanted to give back to an organization we have previously highlighted in the past year: Henry Street Settlement. Henry Street Settlement is an organization that delivers a wide range of social service and arts programming to more than 100,000 New Yorkers each year, founded in 1893 by social work pioneer Lillian Wald and is based on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
Henry Street Settlement
Charity Navigator: 97 rating (out of 100)
Rating: 4/4 stars
Henry Street Settlement has been working for more than 125 years to alleviate the effects of poverty on the Lower East Side community, for all of New York City, and for the nation. They fight poverty by preparing people to enter the workforce, ensuring educational opportunity, providing transitional and supportive housing for the homeless, providing mental and physical health care, and creating access to the arts.
Guided by the blueprint left by their trailblazing founder, Lillian Wald, she believed "Each of us is whole and worthy. Poverty is a social issue (not an individual failing). There is power in bridging differences. Neighbors matter. In times of need, act." Today, the local community that Henry Street serves has the third highest population density in New York City, the fourth largest number of public housing units, and a 26% poverty rate (which rises to 44.6% for children). Perhaps most telling is that they have the second highest rate of income disparity (meaning the difference between the highest- and lowest-earning census tracts) in the city.
As stated by the President & CEO David Garza:
"The fundamental responsibility of a settlement house is to respond to the most pressing needs of our community. The refrain “Listen, reflect, act” has been our North Star throughout the pandemic; through times of exhaustion and hope alike, these words have carried us through an extraordinarily difficult time—for both our team and community. Now, as the Lower East Side, and the world, show signs of rebirth, what we are hearing is that the health of our community has never been a higher priority. So true to form, Henry Street is acting in a variety of ways to address this imperative. As an organization founded to provide public health care, we have taken a strong stand in support of COVID vaccines and testing. But health is not just a physical state. It refers to all of the elements that contribute to individual and family wellbeing—mental health, nutrition, finances, employment, housing, educational access, community safety, and ease of self expression. This constellation of factors—what are now called the social determinants of health—could just as easily define what a settlement does."
If you also want to give back to Henry Street, go to https://www.henrystreet.org and click on donate
The first Tuesday of every month we’ll continue to highlight and donate to non-profit organizations that are in service to DOB’s three core principles; sustainable, inclusive, local.