Over the past year, with a steadily growing demand for our services, emerging needs and funding challenges, Union Settlement Association has continued to provide vital ongoing services for over 13,000 residents of East Harlem.
We are very proud to report some of the following accomplishments from
FY 2007:
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- Providing a wide range of activities for the East Harlem community, including our annual Ethnic Festival, Day of the Dead Celebration, Literature Festival and our seasonal Farmers' Market, which provides affordable, fresh produce to thousands of East Harlem residents every from July to November.
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Childcare and Headstart
- Providing childcare and after-school programming to more than 700 children in East Harlem. Headstart children improved from fall to spring in all skill areas: English language, vocabulary, letter recognition and early math skills.
- Conducting NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene-funded asthma tracking and training activities in childcare and Head Start facilities throughout East and Central Harlem to combat high rates of pediatric asthma.
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Youth Services
- Continuing to achieve with our Stay on Point Against Violence Program, which combines basketball, tutoring and college awareness workshops. Current and past participants are now attending or have been accepted to esteemed high schools such as: Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Dalton, and institutions of higher learning such as SUNY Buffalo, Georgetown, University of Texas, Emory and Middlebury College. .
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- Providing rigorous academic programming to East Harlem students ages 11 to 15 through our Bridges Middle School College Preparation Program. We have a 94 % program retention rate and nearly 60 % of students improved their academic performance.
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- Providing services to the 69 teens in our Union Works employment and education services to help secure summer and/or part-time employment and career-building internships through ongoing mentorship and guidance.
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- Holding two enormously successful youth leadership retreats, one for young women and one for young men. The retreats are part of our efforts to expand and enhance services for East Harlem's young men and women who are at increasingly high risk for becoming disconnected from school, the workforce and their community.
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Settlement College Readiness Program
- Helping over 300 low-income, predominantly minority students graduate from high school. 81 percent of last years program graduates are now enrolled in college, receiving acceptances at such schools as Boston University, various City and State University of New York campuses, Columbia, Cornell, Fordham, Hofstra, Howard, New York University, Penn State Skidmore, Syracuse, Temple, Trinity College, University of Massachusetts, University of Chicago, Wesleyan and Williams College. Awarding scholarships to 14 of our most hardworking program graduates.
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Adult Education
- Serving more than 1,100 Adult Education students with English, basic literacy, GED preparation, computer and citizenship classes, meeting or surpassing all city- and state-mandated outcomes.
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- Launching our New Populations Initiative, providing Elementary Literacy/ESOL classes and one-on-one support services for East Harlem's newest population of immigrants from West Africa and various Arab-speaking nations, many of whom are functionally illiterate.
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Senior Services
- Continuing with our much-loved Dinner Project, which provides a supplemental sandwich to over 300 Meals on Wheels clients, many of whom were subsisting on one meal a day. A recent supplement to the program is our Pantry Project, which provides our clients with supplemental pantry and prepared food items in their daily delivery.
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- Expanding and enriching our highly popular Senior Trip Program, which engages our seniors in trips in and around the city with nearly 20 trips per month to the MacyÕs Flower Show, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Yonkers Raceway, a performance of The Nutcracker, and the South Street Seaport.
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Federal Credit Union
- Providing more than $1.5 million in personal, business, home and educational loans to Union Settlement Federal Credit Union members, helping more than 300 low-income community residents take steps toward achieving their dreams of opening or expanding an East Harlem business, purchasing their own home or attending college.
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- Preparing tax returns for 2,740 community residents, up 44% from last year. Made possible through our collaboration with the Volunteers in Tax Assistance Program, the services brought combined refunds totaling more than $3.5 million for the low-income members of our community.
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HIV Care Network
- Coordinating our Sixth Annual East Harlem AIDS Walk & Health Fair, drawing more than 200 walkers, with another 300 visiting to learn about risk factors, the benefits of getting tested and the local support available for those living with HIV/AIDS.
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Collaborating on Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise, Know Your Civil Rights, a major community event in commemoration of World AIDS Day focusing on the challenges of stigma faced by people living with HIV/AIDS in an effort to increase prevention of new cases of HIV.
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Home Care
- Providing Home Health Care services to over 300 older clients, all of whom expressed high satisfaction rates
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Mental Health
- Serving an average of 500 clients annually, approximately a quarter who are age 12 and under.
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Implementing our Senior Center Mental Health Program, that brings social workers directly to our senior centers to conduct group and individual counseling designed to help our members deal with issues related to aging, depression, anxiety, bereavement and death/dying.
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