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Topics in the News:
community service
It’s called the Love Kitchen, the daily meal service offered by St. Peter’s Church in the Bronx to feed the homeless, senior citizens and the poor. There was a lot of love at its Family Night Dinner on April 25 for the second monthly church supper program that the nearby Bronx UFT hosted and will continue hosting for community members.
The UFT announced on Feb. 3 that it is donating $125,000 to Planned Parenthood. In addition, the union announced that it was inaugurating a special fund-raising effort among its members for the organization. UFT President Michael Mulgrew said, "As a union with a large female membership, we know the importance of the kind of health care that Planned Parenthood provides, including breast cancer screening."
For the second year in a row, the AFT Black Caucus partnered with Harlem-based Johnson Design Consulting to provide year-end holiday cheer and toys for children in the pediatric ward and emergency room at Harlem Hospital Center.
One of the children wanted a coat for Christmas. Others wanted bedsheets. Fifty dollars. A long-sleeved shirt “because it’s getting really cold.” A few bags of Chex-Mix snacks. Socks. A gift certificate to McDonald’s.
A boy is smiling, with bendable glow wands stacked around his neck like a collar worn by sci-fi royalty.
They may have been the three kings, but they seemed like Pied Pipers as they led entranced children (and their parents and grandparents) toward the beautiful gifts that awaited them.
UFT members reached into their pockets, rounded up supplies and donned hard hats, trying in every way possible to help upstate schools and communities devastated by floods get back on their feet after Hurricane Irene hit in August.
When the community that had opened its arms to her lost all but its soul in the floods, Deborah DiGirolamo opened her heart and gave back. Since Hurricane Irene, DiGirolamo, a paraprofessional at Brooklyn’s PS 185, has driven more than 10 vanloads of supplies — mostly donated by school colleagues — upstate to Schoharie Valley in the Catskills, which was devastated by the storm.
UFTers in Queens District 26 were busy this holiday season doing good by collecting some 1,500 coats and 200 cellphones for needy New Yorkers.
More than a dozen UFT members joined forces with Lighthouse International in its fight against vision loss at the organization’s second annual Double Up 4 Vision 5K Tandem Bike Ride and Walk on Oct. 22. The event, which raised more than $340,000 for the cause, paired more than 700 people with and without sight on tandem bikes or as walking partners.
“Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.” I grew up doing community service and I think that’s why I do what I do — and why quite a few of us teachers do what we do. I want to make sure I help kids grow up to become good citizens and community members. That’s my livelihood. It’s something that we as teachers do every day.
Volunteers, supporters and staff of Learning Leaders, the school volunteer program, heard UFT President Michael Mulgrew praise the group at its annual breakfast on Sept. 28 for its 55 years of service to New York City’s children.
Scores of busy hands and gallons of primary color paints transformed the cafeteria, gymnasium and doors of PS 396, a District 75 school for multiply handicapped students in Brooklyn, on Oct 15 — Volunteer for Schools Day. Staff worked with 30 volunteers from New York Cares for a marathon Sunday makeover at the K-8 Brownsville school.
UFTers did it again and in style. Under blue skies and bright sunshine, thousands proudly walked in the annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk on Oct. 16 carrying the blue-and-white UFT banner in all five boroughs plus Jones Beach. The participation of 1,000 UFT members in the Bronx was a special tribute to Annette Carlucci, teacher, chapter leader and high school representative who died from breast cancer during the summer.
While New York City shrugged off Hurricane Irene as the disaster that never materialized, the residents of Schoharie in upstate New York watched as the water in nearby rivers reached record levels. When the rivers finally peaked, every single business on Main Street was gone and 275 of the town’s 350 homes were under four-to-eight feet of water.
More than 500 Queens parents and children turned out for UFT provider Christina Winslow’s seventh annual back-to-school celebration at Baisley Pond Park on Sept. 24.
“It’s beautiful,” Brianna said, as she examined her new backpack. . The 5th-grader was among a group of kids who were treated to a studio tour at Channel 11 on Sept. 22 and received backpacks filled with school items for a good start to the school year. It was part of “Project Back to School,” organized by the Coalition for the Homeless and sponsored by the UFT, Channel 11 and other groups.
Thousands of New York City educators and nurses showed incredible courage and compassion during 9/11 in ways both big and small. UFT nurses rushed to volunteer near the disaster zone. Educators evacuated their classrooms and got their students out of harm’s way; they kept students calm while their world literally crumbled around them.
Most people would have panicked during Hurricane Irene, but not Matthew Foglino. Called on to run a special-needs evacuation center that took in more than 300 evacuees, many of them the elderly and infirm, the Bronx social studies teacher and former chapter leader carried out his considerable duties with remarkable poise.
The 4th- and 5th-graders whose busy fingers and creative spirit designed a powerful memorial quilt a decade ago never imagined it would hang one day in the 9/11 Memorial Museum at Ground Zero, part of the permanent collection.
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