Author Archives: cewdkbcc

NRC Success Story: Charmaine Davis, CHW

Charmaine Davis
Community Health Worker Training 2015 Program Graduate,
The Northeast Resiliency Consortium
Written by: Malika Franklin

“The beginning of the rest of your life.” This is how Charmaine Davis describes the Community Health Worker (CHW) training program at Kingsborough Community College. She thought she was living her dream career as a dental hygienist before she discovered The Northeast Resiliency Consortium (NRC), a Department of Labor TAACCCT program, but little did she know, her life was just about to truly begin.

Shortly after receiving her Associate’s Degree from NYU, Charmaine’s mother was diagnosed with Stage 3 Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Charmaine’s medical training aided in the care she gave her mother. She fought cancer almost 2 years before she passed away. One of her last wishes: “Don’t let anyone else suffer like this”. To Charmaine that was one promise she knew she had to keep.

With a desire to give back to local under-served, vulnerable and underprivileged communities, she began volunteering and giving presentations at neighborhood schools and community centers to bring awareness for oral care and cancer prevention, but she still felt that she needed to do more.

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NRC Fall Events

November and December have been thrilling months for NRC students: Workforce 1 in-house mock interviews, workshops for enrollment into Kingsborough (via the CAT: the CUNY Assessment Test), CHW students leading Prevention Workshops to CEWD’s Project Rise students, and CA students assisting with Chefs for Impact, NRC students have been busy! With our support, NRC students have persisted through the program and really shown how they can shine.

Check out NRC’s home page to learn more. Fill out an application if you’re ready to register.

CEWD Director, Babette Audant, Researches the Stackability of Culinary Arts Credits at KBCC

CEWD’s Executive Director, Babette Audant, just released findings from her study: Stackable credentials and career/college pathways in culinary arts at Kingsborough Community College, CUNY
The study “compared employment and education opportunities for students enrolled in short-term training to those of students enrolled in an associate degree program. Its goal was to explore gaps between employer demand for trained workers and long-term investments in education. The study also aimed to suggest ways in which we can meaningfully support students in their pursuit of degrees, even as they seek employment in high-growth sector for which education, experience, and job titles are often an imprecise match.”

Chefs for Impact

Last year, NRC Culinary Arts students participated in Chefs for Impact, a benefit where NYC chefs gathered raise funds to deliver e-Learning to rural Africa. They worked aside Chef Andrew Whitcomb from Colonie and Mark Henegan from Madiba, serving as Chef Assistants.

They’re doing it again this year, tomorrow, November 19th! Join me in congratulating our students for their hard work and dedication. Go NRC students and Chefs for Impact!

Photo by Kristyn Ulanday, Chefs for Impact

Social Innovation Fund’s Project Rise Evaluation

In our 5 years Kingsborough’s Project Rise has seen so many program and student accomplishments and we couldn’t be more proud. MDRC and the Social Innovation Fund just released a report, Engaging Disconnected Young People in Education and Work, that evaluates Project Rise in its 5 sites (Kingsborough, FEGS, and Henry Street Settlement in New York, Rutgers in New Jersey, and the Full Employment Council in Kansas City, MO).

In this report, KCC’s Project Rise was recognized, among other things, for our collaboration with the College that provided resources to both staff and students—KCC Urban Farm as the pre-internship site, referrals to KCC’s Single Stop for social service benefits, the opportunity to bank college credits, etc.

In a message to her staff, Associate Director of KCC’s Project Rise, Dina LiMandri, said: “There’s a story that the report won’t tell. One about growth and development, leadership and management, interdisciplinary team approaches, and what it takes to create a culture of engagement.” Without a team that brought “a perfect balance of creativity, organization, temperament, and strategy…” our services would look completely different.

Across all sites, Project Rise has been wildly successful:

More than 91% received some HSE preparation.
About 72% began internships and over half of those worked more than 120 hours.
Within 12 months, 25% earned a high school equivalency credential or high school diploma.
About 25% entered unsubsidized employment.

Go Project Rise!

CUNY Fatherhood Academy at Kingsborough

New York City Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives Richard Buery announced today that Brooklyn’s only community college—Kingsborough Community College—and Hostos Community College in the Bronx were chosen as the two expansion sites among CUNY campuses for the CUNY Fatherhood Academy (CFA). The announcement took place at LaGuardia Community College, the site of the original 2012 program launch. Joining Deputy Mayor Buery were Kingsborough Community College president Farley Herzek, Hostos Community College president David Gomez, LaGuardia Community College president Gail O. Mellow, CUNY Director of Continuing Education and Workforces Programs Valerie Westphal, and NYC Human Resource Administration Office of Child Support Enforcement Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Parent and Community Engagement Alan S. Farrell.

Hostos Community College in the Bronx was also selected as the second expansion site, and LaGuardia Community College will continue to sustain the Fatherhood Academy which began on its campus in 2012. Total funding of $2.1 million will serve more than 200 fathers over the next year at all three sites. Beginning in November 2015, the grant of $441,357, which will be administered by Kingsborough’s Center for Economic and Workforce Development, will allow the College to serve an anticipated 40 young fathers in CFA as they prepare for, and enroll in college and/or training programs.

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Bringing it Home at KCC Urban Farm

KCC Urban Farm was just awarded a grant from Ample Table for Everyone, a non-profit that works to “mitigate food insecurity in the five boroughs of New York City by addressing the key causes: lack of time, lack of money, inaccessibility to nutritious food, and unfamiliarity with a variety of healthy ingredients, cooking methods and recipes.”

Our program, Bringing it Home, will teach participants basic cooking skills using both familiar and unfamiliar produce. BiH will empower everyone with the skills and confidence to cook at home for themselves and their families.

Visit Bringing it Home on the blog to find out more about the program including the schedule of workshops and recipes that have been created by students and staff.

See you on the Farm!

Kingsborough and Achieving the Dream

CEWD programs (Project Rise, Northeast Resiliency Consortium) serve as pipelines to college enrollment, specifically enrollment at Kingsborough. Our programs provide educational training needed for college-level work, the opportunity to bank college credit, preparation for the CAT (CUNY Assessment Tests), and enrollment assistance when participants decide to move on to higher education. Pretty awesome, right? It gets even better:

Kingsborough just announced that the College has been recognized as Leader College—a national designation awarded to community colleges that commit to improving student success and closing achievement gaps—at Achieving the Dream. KCC has shown how data can inform policy and practice to help community college students achieve their goals, resulting in improved skills, better employability, and economic growth for families, communities, and the nation as a whole. Upon hearing the news, KCC President Farley Herzek said that the college is “committed to helping students walk away with a sense of confidence and readiness for four-year study or for the workforce.”

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Summer STEM at CEWD and KCC

This summer 14 high school juniors and seniors participated in the Brooklyn Science Innovation Initiative (BSII), a program generously supported by the AT&T Foundation. BSII, a collaboration between CEWD–led by our very own Dr. Edgar Troudt–and KCC’s College Now program–led by the program’s Director Robert Pero–provided college-level Earth Science and Entrepreneurship classes. During this 5-week program, student groups developed virtual business based on what they learned in class.

Photo via Jessica Nieberg at Kings County Politics

Last week, these students presented their businesses to a crowd of over 50, including the president of AT&T Foundation in New York, Marissa Shorenstein, KCC President Farley Herzek, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. Businesses included a system using oysters to clean the ocean, the development of metal cell phone cases to protect and limit radiation exposure, a proposed design for a prototype machine to clean the bottom of the ocean, a solar-powered water filtration system for countries with limited access to clean drinking water, and an app to help make learning earth science more enjoyable.

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NRC Employer Event

On July 20th, Kingsborough’s Northeast Resiliency Consortium Culinary Arts program hosted an employer event where our partners from Workforce1, a program of NYC’s Department of Small Business Services that connects qualified candidates to job opportunities in NYC, and a manager from a local Chipotle restaurant, came to KCC to talk about jobs in NYC’s fast-paced culinary industry. Additionally, participants were invited to directly apply to food service positions available at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. The highlight of the event was a past NRC Culinary Arts participant who shared his experience in the program and how it impacted both his employment and personal life.

You can learn more by visiting NRC on the web. If you’re interested, register for an upcoming application session.