One Community

One Community is a nonprofit organization based in Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. It is grounded in the observation that the neighborhood’s immense institutional and human resources exist side by side with entrenched poverty and that the two parts of the community are separated as though by a wall. One Community bridges resources and needs and dismantles the wall.  Acting with community partners, we initiate projects that immediately change people’s lives.

Typical projects are getting basic personal care items to residents of homeless shelters and creating recreational opportunities for them, placing students from public housing in Pratt Institute art classes, and offering justice-involved people bike mechanic training that leads to union jobs at Citi Bike, through its Bike Path program. During the pandemic, One Community organized a coalition of over 20 partners to distribute food to 1000 seniors and other vulnerable people in public housing. The coalition also is making wellness/social contact calls to seniors. The immediate future holds exploring services to improve the quality of life for seniors in quarantine and transforming the emergency food access program into a permanent food security initiative and reopening Bike Path.