School Based Youth and Community Programs Archives

Support CFL in the last two days of 2024!

This holiday season, the Center for Family Life is so grateful for supporters like you who make the work we do possible. With your support, at this special time of year we go above and beyond in all of our programs to share holiday foods, gifts and clothing with the families who come to our doors.

Thanks to your contributions, between Thanksgiving and Christmas the Center was able to provide over 400 turkeys to neighbors in Sunset Park! We are especially grateful to NYC Council Member Alexa Aviles, New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes, City Harvest, and the Skanska company for their generous contributions to the Center for Family Life’s food pantry this holiday season. Donations of turkeys and all the trimmings helped more of our neighbors to have festive and fulfilling feasts this year.

Our Adult Employment Program also provided toys and hosted a toy giveaway, where families picked up wrapped presents for their children. Some parents came to the Center while their children were in school, and sometimes it was a family affair to pick up gifts!

CFL’s School Based Youth and Community Programs were also busy this holiday season hosting holiday sing-alongs, plays, and gingerbread house-making events in the 11 schools where we offer afterschool programming to in Sunset Park.

Additionally, we are grateful for our wonderful Board of Directors who donated scarfs and gloves to the Center, and for a holiday grant from the United Neighborhood Houses which allowed our Family and Community Supports Program to buy winter coats and holiday gifts for community members in need. As we head toward the coldest months of winter, it’s more important than ever that our neighbors have protective and warm clothing to get them through this winter. Your end of year donation today will help us to ensure that there is one less neighbor without food or warm winter clothing. If you haven’t already, please consider donating to the Center.

It’s always been our mission to be a resource to our neighbors in Sunset Park; seeing everyone come-and-go from the Center — whether to give or receive gifts — made us grateful to be in a community where we all strive to include each other in our festivities and celebrations. The ways we support each other in our community is, in and of itself, something to celebrate as we end 2024 and enter a new year.

In utmost gratitude, and with warmest wishes for the New Year,

The Center for Family Life in Sunset Park

May: Life Lines Community Arts Project & SPHS Present “WITH LOVE”

May 31, 2024

by Kathleen Lion News and Events Youth and Community Development & School Partnerships

Life Lines Community Arts Project is a free, nationally-recognized year-round arts and leadership program for youth, ages 10-21, that brings together the arts, education and social work to engage young people in group experiences that promote individual growth, encourage mutual aid, develop leadership, and build community.

Each year, Life Lines presents an improvisational play that brings to life the struggles and vitality of young people and families in our diverse neighborhood. Although there is a skeletal outline of scenes, there is no written script for the final show. Instead, characters play out their situations in improvised dialogue that changes from performance to performance.

“WITH LOVE” – The E-Sports Tournament

Youth are directly involved in each stage of the spring show design process. Through character development, creative writing, community research, dance, music, and visual art, members share with staff their ideas, feelings, and experiences — these are integrated into original pieces for the production. Following a fall semester of dance, vocal and improvisational acting skill development, our auditioned Repertory Company meets twice a week and participates in a February rehearsal retreat to select the themes and develop core content for the show. The January – April “creation” phase culminates with a Camping Rehearsal retreat for the full cast of participants at the Fresh Air Fund in Upstate New York. Over three days we bring together the dances, songs, ensemble pieces, scenery and props created by all Life Lines groups and troupes. Then, it is back to Brooklyn to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!

Riley and her mother reconnect with empathy and understanding

The Talk with Troy podcast giving everyone a laugh!

This year’s show, WITH LOVE, illustrates love in its many forms! Our show begins with a classroom of high school students with complicated feelings towards love; they start the show wondering whether the vulnerability and trust that love requires is worth the risk in a world that makes us feel like it’s “every person for themselves.” These characters include two mother-daughter duos navigating senior year in their own loving way, a teacher offering support to a student whose family members have newly arrived to this country, mischievous pranksters determined to bring chaos to the school day, an up-and-coming podcaster sharing his philosophy on life, and video gamer friends finding connection in the virtual world.

The scenes, songs, dances, and featured performances from SPHS student groups inspire us to choose love and notice that we’re surrounded by it all the time.

We are thrilled that our performances reached 1,700 elementary, middle, and high school students and over 500 family and community members. We are incredibly grateful to our participants, parents, family members, school and community partners for supporting and joining us for these moving performances as our young people remind us that…

“When hate tries to take the command,
Together we have the strength to withstand.
When it comes to the world that we’ll build,
We’ll build love!”

April: Lt. Governor Antonio Delgado Visits Center for Family Life at PS 1

April 30, 2024

by Kathleen Lion News and Events Youth and Community Development & School Partnerships

On Tuesday April 9th, we were honored to have New York State Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado visit CFLSP’s programs at PS 1 where he was able to see first-hand some of our innovative youth development programming. The Lt. Governor learned about the work of CFLSP through Amiya Castro, former PS 1 participant who is now an Excelsior Service Fellow in the Lt. Governor’s office. Amiya fondly remembered her years participating in CFLSP programs at PS 1, stating she has not found any place quite like it since.

Amiya currently supports the work of the newly-created NYS Office of Service and Civic Engagement, led by the Lt. Governor, to inspire stronger communities through public service opportunities. This office plans to support service organizations and initiatives like ours, with the goal of building an active community and network for service and civic engagement across the state.

During his visit to the PS 1 afterschool program, Lt. Governor Delgado observed members as they participated in visual arts and teambuilding activities that build social, emotional, and problem-solving skills. The Lt. Governor also visited our teen camp group, engaging participants in a productive discussion where they shared suggestions for positive change in New York State. Group members identified reducing pollution and making subways safer as ways that the state government could improve communities. In discussion of growth and the needs of our organization, they advocated for more funding for service projects to help young people grow and learn while making a positive contribution to their neighborhoods.

Lt. Governor Delgado also participated in a roundtable discussion with representatives from our unique “ladder of leadership,” which includes teen camp participants, Counselors-in-Training, AmeriCorps members, and Program Coordinator Jirazel Munoz-Jimenez. The Lt. Governor appreciated learning how our ladder of leadership fosters long-term relationships that enrich our program environments while serving as a pathway for success for participants as they age-up through our programs.

In CFLSP’s ladder of leadership model, participants build leadership skills in elementary school group experiences, move up into middle school service-learning activities and then, in high school, become Counselors-in-Training (CITs) who serve as role models for younger children. CITs become our hiring pool of youth workers and group leaders who staff our elementary and middle school programs during their college years. Group leaders have the opportunity to advance to AmeriCorps service positions where they earn a living allowance and an educational award to support their ongoing education. As a result of our ladder of leadership and investment in community building, we are very fortunate to have many candidates for our robust 74-member AmeriCorps program.

In the roundtable discussion with Lt. Governor Delgado, Kristie Mancell, Division Director for School-Based Programs, advocated for paid service opportunities for high school youth, like our CITs, who are volunteering their time to make a valuable contribution to their community. Providing stipends for youth would allow more young people to participate in service projects.

In reflecting on their roles in the CFLSP program, participants and staff expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to continue to grow alongside other community members while serving as leaders. Lt. Governor Delgado underscored the circular nature of public service, emphasizing that there is a reciprocal relationship between giving and receiving. A CIT echoed this, saying “I get back from young people just as much as I give.”

We are truly grateful to Lt. Governor Delgado, Amiya Castro, and the whole team for coming to visit PS 1. We are inspired by the extraordinary dedication of our volunteers and staff and were proud to share our longstanding service model of youth leadership and community building!

August: Summer Camp in Sunset Park!

September 5, 2023

by Kathleen Lion News and Events Youth and Community Development & School Partnerships

This month, our newsletter highlights the action-packed days of our CFLSP summer camp programs. These programs run full day, 5 days a week in July and August and include field trips to museums, pools, parks, and other sites throughout NYC. Our summer camps engage children in consistent group and community-building activities that promote social, physical, academic and artistic development and offer a diverse range of activities that provide opportunities for children to practice and master skills while having fun.

Here are some of this summer’s highlights!

Students took a trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden where they adventured beyond urban life to explore the garden’s rich vegetation and blossoming flowers. These PS 169 campers pictured on the right expanded their knowledge of plants as they observed different trees and flowers during a scavenger hunt throughout the garden.

Summer campers at PS 94 were busy restoring a garden space which had fallen into disrepair after the pandemic and an extended construction project. STEAM specialist, Margaret Wang, and a group of participants got to work planting sunflowers they grew from seeds, along with flowers, green, and tomato and squash plants. This gardening project taught campers how continuous hard work and patience can transform a space into something beautiful and prosperous.

A highlight of our camp program is our summer Olympics, an annual tradition that excites campers and staff. With the goal of promoting sportsmanship and building community across the program, campers were divided into teams and engaged in healthy competition through water challenges, classic field games, sports, obstacle courses and more.

The summer Olympics at PS 503/506 ended with a team-building feat of strength and perseverance as campers “pulled together” in a friendly tug-of-war.

Campers also had the opportunity to explore their creativity in a variety of media, dance, music, acting, and visual arts. Culminating performances delighted family and community members who were proud of the skill development and stage presence of the large cast of performers.

We are thrilled that this summer we served a total of 1,501 children in our summer camp programming!

In addition, 356 young people gained paid work experience as SYEP camp counselors through the NYC DYCD Summer Youth Employment Program. These talented SYEPs worked alongside our dedicated year-round staff to provide enriching activities for children that built essential skills and contributed to our strong and vibrant community here in Sunset Park.