Girls Club Summer Camp is in full effect! Members are learning new skills, making new friends, and having so much fun. Whether we’re spending time on our Rooftop Farm picking vegetables, or making beats in the Sound Studio, Girls Club Summer Camp is making our NYC summer so much cooler. In addition to fascinating and fun classes like Piñata-Making, Herbalism, Up-cycle Life + Cottage Core, we’re exploring the city on weekly field trips visiting places like Governors Island, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Sky High Farm, and Coney Island! We can’t wait to celebrate at our culminating “Block Party” on August 4th.
A Special Visit & Wellness Conversation with Dascha Polanco
The amazing star of hit show, Orange Is The New Black, Dascha Polanco, made a special visit to the Girls Club on Tuesday, July 18th. After surprising our summer campers, she hosted an intimate wellness conversation with our high school “Grownish” class in our Center for Wellbeing and Happiness. It was a joy to have Dascha’s generous and kind energy in our space.
During the conversation Dascha spoke about her own personal and career journey, her perspective on the importance of wellness and mental health, and how you can “glow what you go through.” Members were encouraged to share in a safe space, stretch through the “thorns” affecting them this Summer, journal about their identity and mental wellbeing, and connect the moments which help “their garden bloom.”
What are you planting this season? How can you prioritize watering yourself more?🌿
We’re Loving: Farm To Table Meals 🥬🙌🏽
We love our Girls Club Rooftop Farm — and better yet, we love harvesting fresh vegetables in the morning and transforming them into a delicious communal meal at lunch! As members water, weed and harvest crops daily, they experiment with tasting new veggies, learn to care for and appreciate plant life and find moments of calm on our rooftop oasis.
Our harvest thus far has included bok choy, swiss chard, kale, cucumbers, herbs, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and more. For lunch we’ve been serving up delicious cucumber salads, kale salads, and pasta with fresh basil. Rooftop to patio is the best lunch in town!
Stay tuned; we are counting the days till our green tomatoes and eggplants ripen and our recipe repertoire grows!❤️
It’s Showtime! Learning Sound Engineering
Mic Check 1,2, 1,2! This Summer in our “Showtime” class our high school members are learning the skills and techniques for live sound engineering and stage setup. Discovering the ins and outs of audio input/ output, sound FX, mic techniques and more, these members are preparing to run our upcoming Summer Jam Block Party. Hopefully their training will lead to part-time gigs in the near future!
Shoutout to our incredible program instructors: Emma Camell, an interdisciplinary sound artist boasting an MA in Music from NYU, and Vargas, our Senior Manager of STEAM programs and a Music Production & Engineering graduate of Berklee College of Music.
Summer @ The Center for Wellbeing & Happiness 💙
Incredible things have been happening at The Center for Wellbeing & Happiness , an initiative of the Girls Club, since opening our doors in October 2022. We have registered over 1,000 members, engaged 30 instructors rooted in the Lower East Side community, offered 26 unique courses and 22 events, and reached nearly 3,000 visits to the space. It has been inspiring to see our space filled with so many individuals of different generations, backgrounds and connections to the Lower East Side.
Honoring the power and wisdom already existing in our community, we have been able to offer several offerings this Summer such as:
- Organizing an amazing new mom’s group: “Mamahood Meetup,” to allow new moms to explore the transition of parenthood and find support amongst their community.
- Hosting an incredible “Drag Bingo” event during June for Pride, with Loisaida’s very own Ellana St. Lavi! Read a beautiful profile about the artist here.
- Working with our Food Justice Coordinator, Johanne, to secure 4,000+ KIND bars for our Community Food Pantry + Food Farmacy.
- Launching our new “Well-Blog” – “a space for our community to talk about what wellbeing looks like for the Lower East Side and how we can work towards collective wellbeing together.” The blog features personal essays from members, “Well-Done” community achievements and resources.
Stay tuned for exciting updates from the Center for Wellbeing & Happiness, and follow us on IG: @centerforwellbeing.nyc!
Comments are closed.