2023 A Year In Review
/BIG GRANT NEWS!!
We are thrilled to announce that we have been awarded a $210,000 grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation!
The grant allows us to partner with the Brooklyn Packers, a worker-owned, Black-led food distribution cooperative. With long connections to women/queer/BIPOC-owned farms, Brooklyn Packers bring locally grown produce to Brooklyn and, through an affiliate CSA, supplies produce at a sliding scale to our local food deserts.
The funds will supply our food pantry with locally grown produce from underrepresented farmers that can meet the cultural needs of our visitors, while supporting the work of the Brooklyn Packers, who provide nourishment to our entire Brooklyn community.
Click a page below to see pics!
“As we look back at the compounding crises of the last few years, the health-related needs of vulnerable communities have only grown. Our grantees have demonstrated tremendous resilience, creativity, and dedication to serving those in need, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have such detrimental impact,” said Alfred F. Kelly, Jr., Executive Chairman of Visa and Chair of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation Board.
The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the health and wellbeing of New Yorkers, particularly of vulnerable communities.
FOOD PANTRY UPDATE
Our partnership with the Fifth Avenue Committee continued! This year, we offered two English Language classes, one for beginners, one for students with some English exposure. We are proud of our Spanish speaking pantry visitors for working so diligently on their language skills!
Our food pantry has been seeing between 530-600 families in the last month, half of whom are in the 11215 zip code. We continue to deliver to seniors through Heights and Hills.
We are thrilled to work in partnership with our community and our representatives, including Councimember Shahana Hanif, State Assemblymembers Robert Carroll and Jo Ann Simon, State Senator Andrew Gounardes and NY Presbyterian Methodist Hospital. They helped us collect toys, turkeys and backpacks for our special giveaways. And the hospital provided free Dental screenings for our families.
ABOUT OUR ARTS AND SPORTS PROGRAMS
Camp Friendship’s art program ran a summer session, in which 25 kids met twice a week in Bay Ridge’s Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. A Spanish interpreter was on hand to make sure our recently arrived students were up to speed.
There were two projects that really stood out to our art instructor, Laura Murray. One was a self portrait, in which the kids first sculpted a low-relief relief replica of their hands. They used a critical eye to capture every detail, every line and wrinkle, and they would have to color mix their own skin tone using only the primary colors and white paint to tint.
“I honestly expected the hands to all turn out the same, but the kids really impressed me by taking their time with this project and really applied their skills,” she said. “All the hands were unique, and some of them really quite emotive. They really enjoyed the challenge.”
A second project was a water color in which the kids walked to a local park and used Albrecht Durer's "A Great Piece of Turf" as inspiration for finding beauty. The park overlooked the Hudson, which brought out a lot of emotion, especially in one student.
“Seeing something as quotidian as the Hudson was such a huge deal for this kid,” Laura explained. “It was really emotional.”
Forty kids took part in our baseball program this year, which was free, thanks to a grant from the New York Athletic Club. The players were between 13 to 18 years old and they played about 20 games each from April to mid-June; our older team, who played double headers every Saturday and Sunday, made the playoffs!
“For a lot of kids, it was their first time playing organized baseball,” said Executive Director Tony Berger. At this age, most teams require tryouts, which would prevent the new players from joining a team. But Camp Friendship’s teams take all children.
On the younger team, there were two players who had never played baseball before. By the end they could hit, catch and they became among the best players on the team.
“They took it seriously and they really loved it,” said Camp Friendship’s Executive Director and baseball coach, Tony Berger.
IN MEMORIAM
John Duda, founder of Camp Friendship, passed away. He was 80.
A reasonable way to start any obituary, that sentence doesn’t cover how many lives John touched and how many young men and women he guided.
“I remember being a little kid and walking to the corner store or to get a slice of pizza and we would run into a dozen people. I thought he was the mayor,” his daughter Emily recalled. “His influence was powerful and palpable. People admired him, relied on him and understood he was just a man who was all about community in such an authentic way.”
His life experience and his personality set him up for mentorship. His dad ran an all-boys camp that met in Prospect Park and in Maine; he served in the military in Vietnam and he
taught at PS 321, where he discovered he had a special gift with struggling students. He learned that some men needed to have release points to talk about their problems and he became intimately involved with his students and their lives.
These experiences grew the discipline, expectation and guidance that so many young people came to appreciate.
At the Maine Camp, boys learned independence and accountability (it became co-ed in the 1980s). For example, their cabins had to be clean, otherwise, they’d be asked to try again. Executive Director Tony Berger was one of many young men that served a number of roles in the organization. He was a dishwasher, camp counselor, he coached sports teams and eventually he was asked to run the organization. He recalls learning how to make nice, neat hospital corners and properly fold clothes. Besides the small details, he taught the kids to sail, to canoe and to read the tides. And John was generous with giving people a chance.
“He gave guys opportunities to make something of themselves, really, and he didn’t have to do that,” said Tony, recounting jobs that Duda would give people who were down on their luck. “Everyone doesn’t do that in life. John didn’t care anything about money whatsoever. He didn’t give two craps about money. I guess that’s what people liked about him, he was himself, he didn’t change.”
While the camp was an important part of Camp Friendship, the building at 339 8th Street became the heart of everything. He bought it for about $60,000 and it was so rundown it had a hole in the roof. Friends and supporters came together to create the community space it is now. The rents offset the cost of programming and makes it possible to have a space to run a community food pantry that now sees between 530 and 600 families a week and allows families to come together to learn English.
“He can see things in broken objects, buildings, people,” said Emily who added her dad used to work on old buildings to supplement his Camp Friendship income. “That building is filled with his blood sweat and tears.”
John’s legacy lives on through Camp Friendship and his strong leadership continues to inspire and guide. “For me, Camp Friendship was the best experience of my life and it made me who I am today,” Tony said. “Without that environment I would have made a left turn and wound up somewhere else. All the temptation was there, I had another place to be rather than being in the streets.”