Do your part for The Bronx – Volunteer!

Community calendar

New York Cares, the city’s leading volunteer organization, offers great ways for Bronx residents to get involved in their community through rewarding, conveniently scheduled projects.

February Volunteer Project Highlights – The Bronx

Becoming a New York Cares volunteer is easy. Simply attend a one-time orientation at the Mott Haven Library on the evening of Tuesday, February 21^st or any other Bronx location. You can then choose from approximately 1,200 projects citywide each month.  To register for an orientation in your area, please visit www.newyorkcares.org or call 212-228-5000.

Upcoming Bronx project highlights:

·      CFY Family Learning Workshop at JHS 118 X — Bring computer technology to middle school students and their families, by guiding them as they learn to navigate their computers and explore educational software on Saturday mornings and afternoons in East Tremont.

·      Wii Games at Serviam Gardens — Spend some time socializing and playing Wii Sports and other games with seniors at this senior development in Fordham on Monday evenings.

·      Sports, Games, and Crafts with KEEN at St. Mary's Recreation Center — Skip the gym this weekend and enjoy open ended sports and art activities with children with special needs. Help these athletes discover just how much they can do by tossing footballs, playing Duck, Duck Goose, coloring pictures, and creating craft masterpieces in Longwood on Saturday afternoons.

·      Mock Interviews at Highbridge Community Life Center — Empower local job-seekers in transitioning to self-sufficiency and breaking the cycle of poverty by participating in mock interviews in Highbridge on Tuesday mornings.

                                                                       

Cardinal-Designate Timothy Dolan to Bless New Casita Maria Library

Kids from Casita Maria celebrate new library. (Photo courtesy of Casita Maria)

Before Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan leaves for Rome to be made a Cardinal, he  will bless the new library at the Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education, a 78 year old cultural and education center  located in the South Bronx, one of the poorest Congressional Districts in the United States.  The library is intended to combat the drop in pupil reading scores in New York City schools.  The Archbishop will arrive at the new Claire Sullivan O’Keeffe and Elizabeth Sullivan Ridder Library at approximately 3:15pm on February 8, 2012.

The new library is the result of a true collaboration to improve the reading of young New Yorkers at educational risk.   Among the collaborators are The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund & NYC Service Volunteer Project, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York and the Urban Assembly Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists.

Casita Maria’s volunteers collected nearly 2,700 books, quintupling its goal.  Catholic Charities donated 500 more books through its annual Christmas toy drive. Other volunteer efforts yielded another 2,200 books. Casita received books from SERVE!, a student volunteer group from New York University, Boyds Mills Press, Granta Publications, Simon and Schuster and members of Casita’s community.  Those 2,700 books needed shelves to become a library. Catholic Charities stepped in to fund the conversion of a conference room into a library with wall-to-wall pine shelves.

The new library was named in honor of Claire Sullivan O’Keeffe and Elizabeth Sullivan Ridder, who, 78 years ago, founded Casita Maria to give the children of recently arrived Hispanic families the educational support needed to thrive in their new homeland. Today, Casita Maria’s mission is to empower youth and their families by creating a culture of learning through high quality social, cultural, and educational opportunities. Besides its brand new, book-filled library, Casita Maria offers programs focused on arts and education, and they include a wide range of in-school and after-school programs, as well as summer camps and internships. For more information about Casita Maria, please visit www.casitamaria.org.

source: Casita Maria

A Sunday at the NYBG

A Sunday at the NYBG, a set on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
I always look for the Caribbean in the Bronx in any way I can. This time it was easy. I got to go to the New York Botanical Garden and enjoy its exhibit Caribbean Garden.
The exhibit runs until February 26, 2012. If you are into palm and mango trees, make sure to check this out. Learn about the trees from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and more.
Visitors this winter can escape to Caribbean Garden, a look at the tropical trees, flowers, and foliage, including orange-yellow crotons, fuschia bromeliads, and rosy red hibiscus, in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory’s permanent collection. Through self-guided strolls, use of a new virtual tour, The Beauty of the Caribbean, or participation in docent-led tours of the Conservatory, visitors can encounter many surprises in the largest Victorian-style glasshouse in the country. Visitors can also enjoy a display of photos from the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition and partake in salsa and photography lessons on weekends. Children can participate in a scavenger hunt that begins in the Conservatory. I learned about Puerto Rico's plumwood tree with a group of kids in a scavenger hunt.
For more information, www.nybg.org.