RED HOOK INITIATIVE
767 Hicks Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231 www.rhicenter.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: RHI believes that social change to overcome systemic inequities begins with empowered youth. In partnership with community adults, we nurture young people in Red Hook to be inspired, resilient, and healthy, and to envision themselves as co-creators of their lives, community and society. We envision a Red Hook where all young people can pursue their dreams and grow into independent adults who contribute to their families and community.

RHI believes that social change to overcome systemic inequities begins with empowered youth. In partnership with community adults, we nurture young people in Red Hook to be inspired, resilient, and healthy.

Youth Development Programs (ages 11-24): Our youth development pipeline runs from middle school through young adulthood; its aim is to collaboratively interrupt cycles of injustice and to build hope. Beginning in middle school, RHI offers a daily afterschool program focusing on academic enrichment and leadership skills. This is followed by a 4-year program focused on employment, education and leadership. By eleventh grade, RHIs youth leaders are getting routine exposure to opportunities in college and careers and they are also employees at RHI, receiving training that enables them to provide programs and services to their peers. For those aged 19-24, RHI serves young adults in small groups and individual services. These include a College Scholars Program (for students planning to apply to college or working toward a two or four year degree) and employment programs (for those searching for work or in need of professional development training). Individual services include coaching, resume and job application support, benefits screening, clinical counseling, legal referrals and housing referrals through case management. In FY20, RHI served 450 youth from Red Hook with these services. Community Building Programs: RHIs work to build a healthy and sustainable Red Hook flows directly out of our focus on youth development, but engages residents of all ages. Our approach to community building is to facilitate authentic participation and leadership, build social capital, and create positive institutional change in Red Hook. High school juniors and seniors learn about community organizing and advocacy and then lead an action or campaign of their choice. Since 2014, RHI has trained over 225 adult Local Leaders in emergency preparedness and community organizing, equipping public housing residents to be resilient in the face of emergencies and building their collective power. In FY20, our organizing training successfully brought together its first intergenerational cohort, which mobilized for increasing NYCHA funding and improved living conditions in Brooklyns largest public housing complex. In FY20, RHI outreach workers conducted targeted Census registration efforts, shifting from in-person to online after the State enacted Shelter in Place. During this period, the community building team also did extensive surveying of residents health and safety needs, which guided our emergency response work.RHI runs two core, intensive professional development training programs that serve to realize our commitment to hiring locally and investing and promoting Red Hook residents as leaders in the nonprofit sector. In the first three years of the Fellowship and Accelerator, RHI has served 35 Red Hook participants in their nonprofit career development. In FY20 RHI paid over $1.25M back to the Red Hook community through local hiring, youth work opportunities, and stipends or contracts paid to local residents. COVID Response: RHI closed its community center on March 13, 2020 and quickly shifted to providing the bulk of our services by phone and Internet, including conducting remote youth programs that supported students in their own educational and emotional transitions. Our community surveys revealed gaps in access to food, and so the site of our nearly-three-acre urban farm became a food distribution hub. As the farming season progressed, our farms once again provided dozens of job opportunities for youth while also creating a source of healthy affordable produce for the community at large. In the spring of 2020, our youth and food access programs collectively served more than 650 people per week from the Red Hook community, who reached hundreds more of their peers and neighbors.

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Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202013569349300221_public.xml