Brooklyn Community Foundation

SVS Congratulates Marilyn Gelber and the Brooklyn Community Foundation Staff on their Launch and Commitment to Strengthening Brooklyn’s People, Communities, and Organizations.

On October 1, 2009, the Brooklyn Community Foundation was officially launched as the first and only community foundation dedicated exclusively to the people of Brooklyn. Formerly the Independence Community Foundation, a private foundation, Brooklyn Community Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated to improving the lives of people in Brooklyn through local giving, grantmaking and community service.

We at St. Vincent's Services are extremely excited by this wonderful news. SVS received our first grant from the Independence Community Foundation in June 1998 - only months after it was formed.

The grant supported our "Independence Day Program", an initiative designed to help provide tuition assistance for foster youth who were desirous of a college education. “Independence Day” evolved into our signature American Dream Program, but the seeds of a long, productive partnership were planted with that first grant.

SVS got its start over 150 years ago as a refuge for the multitudes of homeless newsboys who populated the Brooklyn waterfront. Although our services today extend to young people and families in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, the "nerve center" of our operations remains the flagship building at 66 Boerum Place that was built in 1906 to serve as a home for young boys from the surrounding Brooklyn community who either had no families or whose families were too poor to care for them.

The needs of the residents of Brooklyn continue to be enormous, yet a 2002 Foundation Center study showed that nearly 90% of New York-area charitable giving goes to Manhattan.

We congratulate the Brooklyn Community Foundation for its decision to focus to "Do Good Right Here", its motto, by investing in the future of Brooklyn. We especially laud the foresight of President Marilyn Gelber, who has been so instrumental not only in guiding the Independence Community Foundation focus on Brooklyn grantmaking but in stewarding our own longstanding relationship with the Foundation.

Over the past decade, we have received $150,000 in grants for our work from the Brooklyn Community Foundation--a majority of which have been targeted toward the American Dream Program (ADP). Launched in 1997, the ADP ensures that all SVS youth who are accepted into a program of higher education (including college, technology or trade programs, vocational training, etc.) will be able to attend their chosen institution until they graduate, even after they turn 21 and their governmental support has stopped. Since our young people overwhelmingly lack the support and “safety nets” of a child who has grown up in a traditional family structure, it goes without saying that without this crucial source of support their goals of higher education and self-sufficiency would truly be little more than a dream.

Reflecting on their relationship with SVS, Marilyn Gelber shared the following with us:

"When I think back to my first introduction to SVS back in 1998, there were two things that impressed me regarding your work. (President and CEO) Msgr. Harris and the agency clearly had great courage to look at things differently and not be daunted by government-imposed funding limitations in terms of what types of services could—and should—be offered to youth in the foster care system. SVS also had the creativity needed to do something new - something that no one else was doing—in terms of providing for the future of the young people who turn to you for service. We have been delighted to have been a part of this vital program launch, and to watch the ADP grow and evolve to the point where today you are preparing to extend this important program to a younger audience of high school-aged students through your new Pathways to the American Dream initiative."

We at SVS are truly grateful for our relationship with the Brooklyn Community Foundation, and wish Ms. Gelber and the Foundation staff all the best as they forge a new funding paradigm for the larger Brooklyn community. To learn more about the Brooklyn Community Foundation, visit: brooklyncommunityfoundation.org