How To Help

Let's Help Get These Teens To Japan

by | Jan 26, 2024 2:14 pm | Comments (14)

Contributed Photo

Ready to fly: HSC students Jonah Rosenberg, Jazmin Rosario, Diana Robles, and Justin Welch, who worked with Japanese class to fold 1,000 paper cranes to take to Japan.

High School in the Community (HSC) junior Ty’Nique Turner will get the chance to visit Japan and try out the language she’s been teaching herself since middle school, thanks to New Haven Public Schools’ return of international adventures. 

Assuming organizers can raise a lot of money fast.

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Peace Waged, Park Butts & Hub Caps Cleared On Interfaith Day of Service

by | Aug 9, 2022 9:03 am | Comments (3)

Kristen Schick, coastal cleanup intern for environmental nonprofit Save the Sound, collecting trash during Sunday morning's cleanup at Criscuolo Park.

Hub cap. Fish skull. Brand new bucket hat. Bike chain. An entire picnic setup. And so, so many metal bottle caps.

These were among the items included in 200 pounds of trash collected by volunteers at Criscuolo Park on Sunday morning.

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Violin Strings, Heartstrings, Pulled For Ukraine

by | Apr 18, 2022 3:45 pm | Comments (0)

Kimberly Wipfler Photo

Yaira Matyakubova and Lyala Stowe at gathering on Peck Street.

The room was hushed when Lyala Stowe began to speak. Her voice was soft. She is from Ukraine, and she was about to recite poems by Ukrainian poets.

Stowe apologized that most audience members would not comprehend the words, spoken in her native tongue. Regardless, the room held onto every syllable.

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1 Day, 3 Pivots: Neighbors Feed Neighbors

by | Feb 1, 2021 10:32 am | Comments (3)

Maya McFadden Photo

Honda Smith and Andrea Daniels-Singleton in the kitchen before hitting the road to deliver meals in West Hills.

As temperatures swooped below freezing, New Haveners delivered sustenance to their neighbors: bags of prepared beef and potatoes for seniors in West Hills, groceries for hungry families in the Hill, Mystic cheese and locally produced honey for farmers market shoppers in Wooster Square.

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Help “NICE” Neighbors Clothe Kids In Cold

by | Dec 15, 2020 1:58 pm | Comments (2)

Maya McFadden Photo

Rasheed at the Hill substation.

At 10 years old, Jamilah Rasheed had one used pair of shoes for school. Passed down from her cousin, the shoes were a size too small. Her family couldn’t afford anything else. A hole eventually formed in the back of those used shoes until Rasheed couldn’t wear them anymore.

She thinks back on that time as she enlists New Haveners to help a new generation of young people stay warm this the winter.

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Pandemic Puts Basic Health Needs Out Of Reach For Many Families

by | Dec 2, 2020 2:38 pm | Comments (0)

Maya McFadden Photo

Food giveaway at Barnard last week, one of many in New Haven as hunger grows during the pandemic.

(Opinion) Imagine: You’ve just lost your job due to the pandemic, and now you don’t know how you will afford your next diaper run. Or, you can’t go to work or school, or partake in daily activities, simply because you can’t access the period or incontinence supplies you need. 

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Cold + Covid = Tough Winter For Homeless

by | Oct 16, 2020 12:53 pm | Comments (43)

Steve Hamm Photo

Steve Hamm Photo

“There’s a lot of us that are still out here. I’ve known people who fell asleep outside and died.”

Steve Hamm Photo

“Before you could walk into the library and stay there. You could look for jobs. You could look for food pantries. Without a phone, without internet access, it’s very difficult for people living in tents, living outdoors.”

Sizing up the challenge ahead — and how we as a community can meet it.

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Frontline Providers Hustle To Keep City Fed

by | Apr 17, 2020 11:50 am | Comments (1)

Maya McFadden photo

Picking up groceries at the DESK food pantry downtown.

A comprehensive digital guide to food pantries and soup kitchens. A drive-through farmers market with no cap on doubled food stamp dollars. Mutual aid collaborations designed to get food to immigrants in need.

Those are among the grassroots efforts in town to make sure New Haveners don’t starve during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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“Food Garage” Feeds Families During Covid

by | Apr 14, 2020 1:22 pm | Comments (4)

Paul Bass Photo

Organizer Luis Luna at the Food Garage: Undocumented workers are frontline workers.

Contributed Photo

Common Ground High School barn, where Food Garage team divides up boxes.

What began in mid-March with a few boxes of extra vegetables from Trader Joe’s has turned into a grassroots operation that collects donated food for around 180 mostly immigrant families a week out of a garage in Westville.

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Mutual Aid Teams Tackle Covid-19 Challenge

by | Mar 27, 2020 11:45 am | Comments (3)

Mercy Quaye photo

CTCORE’s Raven Blake, Ashley Blount and Camelle Scott.

Contributed photo

Semilla Collective’s Sarah Eppler-Epstein and Eden Almasude.

Two groups of local community organizers have set up grassroots mutual aid” funds with the goal of providing everything from grocery runs to educational support to direct cash assistance for vulnerable New Haveners during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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“Game Changer” Honored For Feeding The Hungry

by | Jan 17, 2020 2:55 pm | Comments (1)

Allan Appel Photo

Honoree Batson with proud daughter Whitney.

In her work as a pre-school teacher in Hamden, Allison Batson discovered many of the families of her kids were food insecure.

That, along with her faith, led her to found Dinner for a Dollar,” a communal supper that now feeds about 60 people, including the homeless, isolated seniors looking for social contact, and just plain neighbors, every Friday night 52 weeks a year at the Grace and St. Peter’s Church on Dixwell Avenue in northern Hamden.

Batson has never missed a Dinner for a Dollar night in eight years. In her spare time (!) she volunteers at warming centers in Hamden and helps on the homeless front through service on the board of Columbus House.

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