Capital Campaign
Click here to download a PDF with more information about our capital project.
In 2008 The Lower Eastside Girls Club will start construction on The Lower Eastside Girls Club Center for Community, New York City's first and only Girls Club facility. This sustainably built "green" state-of-the-art capital project will enable us to triple our program capacity. When the doors open to our new building, girls will enter a new world filled with hope, imagination and possibility for the future.
We are expanding our successful entrepreneurial social venture businesses, The Sweet Things Baking Company and Community Café, with the construction of a Culinary Education Center and commercial kitchen. These programs offer job training and opportunities for teenage girls and neighborhood women. The kitchen will also serve as a classroom for nutrition education and meet in-house food service needs. A courtyard filled with flowers, an outdoor fountain designed by artist Kiki Smith, and café tables will provide a unique oasis for dining and quiet events.
In the Fair Trade Gift Shop and Book Store, items from cooperatives around the world share shelf space with girl-made crafts and artwork. Our public market space houses small business incubators for community entrepreneurs and an office for the Girls Club Community Cooperative Bank-a Time/Dollar alternative economy program. This will also be a home for our Farmers Market Center, simultaneously supporting New York State farmers and our community's health.
Our Technology Core / IT Center is the epicenter of all technology-related programs and equipment. The tech core will be fully accessible to LESGC members and their families and will be home to computer stations with free wireless Internet access, digital photography, filmmaking and editing equipment, digital sound and music stations.
The Library & Academic Support Center is the site for after-school tutoring, book clubs and quiet activities - offered daily by educational staff and trained volunteers.
Program development offices, conference and training rooms share space with the Counseling, Career and Leadership Center where girls can meet with social workers, career counselors, and college advisors. Ongoing leadership development and civic engagement programs take place here.
The Health and Wellness Center, a multipurpose facility for healthcare and physical activities, will include dance, yoga, drumming, fencing, meditation and stress reduction programs, sports activities and more. Nurse practitioners, nutritionists, and physical fitness instructors will be available for counseling and training.
Large light-filled art studios will be used for painting, drawing and other materials arts classes.
A Science and Environmental Education Center will open onto a working “green roof” where girls will grow flowers and herbs for the café and demonstrate a variety of alternative energy products.
A portion of this new facility will be devoted to public programming and the arts. The “Girls Out Loud” Internet Radio Station is the site for live programming, podcasting, and digital journalism activities. Simultaneously, girls will be taking their digital film, photography and IT courses, while school classes and the general public participate in film festivals and screening events in the Screening Room. The Art + Community Gallery, site of LESGC’s teen curatorial training programs, will act as a venue for a wide range of art exhibitions.
The Lower Eastside Girls Club Center for Community will be the first center of its kind in New York City—offering free and creative programs and opportunities to girls and their families for years to come.
For more information about our capital project or to contribute towards our efforts, please contact Adriana Pezzulli.