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We have a lot going on at Strycker's Bay, some of it good, and some of it very bad.
I'll start with the bad. And maybe its not so much bad as it is a huge challenge for us in the upcoming months. We were notified over the summer that our budget for the After School Program we run at PS84 would cut by $20,000! This is over and above the $30,000 cut we received last year.
We are resourceful here at Strycker's Bay and resilient, and while this was bad news we put things in place to make sure grant writing would happen immediately and other sources of income would stream into the program to insure the families and children that are part of the program would not be without services our program offers. A $20,000 cut could have resulted in 40 families being cut from the program. We haven't completely resolved this problem, be we have not yet resorted to eliminating any slots. Financial and corporate support for our after school program activities are desperately needed and if you have access to information and resources that could help us in anyway please contact me.
A few weeks later on July 26, we received an email from New York City's Department of Youth and Community Development -- a major funder of our eviction prevention program -- that said:
As you all know, the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program is under serious threat as Congress deliberates on a budget for FFY 12. At a minimum, we expect a 50% reduction to CSBG nationally.
That email instructed us, and other CSBG funded groups to adjust their budgets to reflect at least a 50% reduction, for Strycker's Bay, this will translate to more than a $30,000 cut to our eviction prevention program.
We lost $94,000 last year and now an additional $50,000 this year. As most people know we are fighters at Strycker's Bay, resourceful fighters, and we have made the necessary budget cuts which required us to reduce staff hours and will probably result in us have to give up the office space we just moved into on January 1, 2011. We can not afford the negotiated contract rent for our program space effective July 1, 2011.
In spite of these financial obstacles, we have continued to build partnerships and seek resources that will help us continue to keep our doors open. I will be reporting on these in the coming weeks and reaching out to our community of friends and supports to assist us.
I will not pretend that we are not concerned with our future and survival, we are very concerned, however we are determined to get through this, but the bottom line here is we need funding and sponsorships to keep our doors open.
I am hoping that Strycker's Bay can call on and count on you to help.
Thanks for reading,
Kelley
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