Protecting and improving the community for the people who live and work here

Compared to Justen Ladda’s section here

For anyone under 18 years old

Jose serves breakfast and lunch! (see below for menu)

Breakfast and lunch will continue beyond the instructional school year. Our Summer Meals Program is available throughout New York City to anyone ages 18 years old and under. Designated public schools, community pool centers, parks, and food trucks will be open for service. No registration, documentation, or ID is necessary to receive a free breakfast or lunch meal.

Service Dates & Menus

• All dates, times, locations and menus are subject to change.
• Wednesday, June 28, 2023 – Friday, September 1, 2023
• There is no service Tuesday, July 4, 2023 (4th of July)
• Summer Breakfast Menu(Open external link)
• Summer Lunch Menu

Neighbors to Save Rivington House, Council Members Rivera and Marte, Borough President Levine in Attendance!!

Neighbors to Save Rivington House

ROAR WITH US!

ROAR: Rejoice! Organize! Activate! Reclaim!

Led by University Settlement with FABnyc, M’Finda Garden, GreenMapNY, Conbody, NYCParks, SRPCC (us), and many others!

For more event schedules HERE: 

LES Community Heroes Jasmine Corchado, Andy Fontanez, Sabura Rashid, K Webster

Special Award for efforts to support those seeking asylum: Artists Athletes Activists, Lilah Mejia, Camille Napoleon

Link to FABnyc‘s notification: https://mailchi.mp/fabnyc/lower-east-side-history-month-is-coming-celebrate-with-us-this-may-201664

and FABnyc website (lots more photos): https://peoplesles.org/content/k-webster/

Text of K’s Acceptance Talk:

I like these awards. I like honoring local people – each offering a version of not giving up, of how they figured out to stand with others. Stepping in, even if they can’t always win, they’re still willing to try.

Like Debra – who fights for the right to an educational system that everyone could trust in.

Like Ryan – who knows that art and artists are essential, and creates possibilities.

Like Kim Fong who built a diverse and compassionate staff to care for her seniors.

Like my brother Paul, who intervened when racism or sexism played out on the construction site.

Like my mom who after my dad’s heart attack went to work nights taking an hour-long bus ride to a production-line job with men who didn’t want her there, but because she decided to win them over – they became her fiercest allies.

Like Sgt Prado from our community policing unit who tried desperately to save a young women’s life, but couldn’t, and didn’t try to hide his grief.

Like Marvin and other young men that Bob Humber ‘takes under his wing’ who have no housing, but have a home with him. Each choosing the other.

Like my ‘now’ family: all brilliant, good men: Steve, Lee, and Adam.

Like my friend and comrade Azi Khalili whose bravery, smarts and love extend over a large part of the world, literally saving lives.

Like all of us who try, in Alice Walker’s words, to add our own ‘small stones to the pile’.

Like anyone who dares to get up again after all the ‘tries’ that didn’t work.

I try not to second-guess how we’ve survive our lives, but also try not to assume that any survival strategy determines our lives forever. And to remember that oppressive systems pit everyone against everyone on every possible difference. But that we don’t have to accept that.

To me, a hero is someone who understand that sometimes the bravest thing we can do is to show vulnerability or listen or wait or risk a mistake. And sometimes these are the only things that save lives in a tough, but very beautiful, vast world filled with all the rest of us, heroes all, who are trying too.

Thank you. And “you’re welcome”.