BY SERGEI KLEBNIKOV | N.Y.U.’s Office of Civic Engagement recently awarded nearly $100,000 in grants to 87 community-based nonprofit organizations. The grants were given out at a June 3 ceremony to nonprofits with “missions to serve the local community in Lower Manhattan,” according to New York University.
The ceremony was presided over by Lynne Brown, senior vice president for university relations and public affairs; Alicia Hurley, vice president for government affairs and community engagement; and Bill Pfeiffer, director of the Office of Civic Engagement.
The event was “very upbeat,” according to Phil Lentz, the university’s Director of Public Affairs, and every organization receiving an award was represented.
“NYU and its employees are proud to give back to the Lower Manhattan community,” Pfeiffer said in a press report.
Money was raised through the N.Y.U. Combined Campaign and the T.G. White Fund.
The N.Y.U. Combined Campaign is an annual employee donation for university faculty, staff and administrators. The T.G. White Fund was established by longtime Greenwich Village resident Theodore Greeley White, who died in 1913, and is administered by the N.Y.U. Office of Civic Engagement.
The N.Y.U. Community Fund has given out more than 1,600 grants to local organizations over the last 33 years, totaling near $2.6 million. A group of volunteers from each school within the university selects the awards for the Community Fund by scoring proposals from the local nonprofits. Awards were focused on groups providing support in five areas: arts and cultural programs, at-risk children and youth programs, homelessness and hunger prevention, education and literacy programs, and low-income health services.
Among local groups that won awards this year were the Educational Alliance, Cooper Square Committee, Manhattan Youth, GO Project, Bowery Mission, Bowery Residents’ Committee, VillageCare, Greenwich House, Hetrick-Martin Institute, Chelsea Opera, Cherry Lane Theatre, Fourth Arts Block, NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, Gilda’s Club, God’s Love We Deliver, Lower Eastside Girls Club, Theater for the New City, and Third St. Music School Settlement.
