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Thank You! | Celebrating Community 2025

by News and EventsUncategorized

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for your support of the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park.

You helped make Celebrating Community 2025 a huge success! It was an unforgettable night spent with friends of CFL, old and new, honoring Julie Stein Brockway’s enduring legacy.

We are thrilled to announce the establishment of the Julie Stein Brockway Innovation Fund, which will enable CFL’s next generation of leaders to power Julie’s creative vision long into the future.

DONATE TO THE JULIE STEIN BROCKWAY INNOVATION FUND
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“Words cannot begin to express the depth of my love and appreciation for the incredible people with whom I have partnered in this remarkable, vibrant community over the past 43 years.

I leave with my heart full to overflowing, knowing that the strong and resilient Sunset Park community and Center for Family Life will continue to thrive in the most capable hands.” – Julie Stein Brockway

With your generous support, we engage more than 20,000 children, youth, and adults through our programs offered at 14 different locations.

Here are some of CFL’s 2025 highlights:

  • We served 2,130+ youth through our afterschool programs and 1,600+ children through our summer day camps
  • We connected 1,150+ youth to summer work and service-learning opportunities, generating close to $2 million in earnings for youth and their families
  • We served 135,612 meals through our food pantry
  • We provided free immigration and legal services to 430+ community members through ActionNYC
  • We helped community members file nearly 6,000 tax returns with our VITA tax filing team, securing refunds totaling more than $8.7 million
  • We placed 190+ participants in jobs with our Adult Employment program
  • We have incubated 25+ cooperatives, with the Cooperative Business Development Program recently launching Cooportunity Cleaning
Your doations will ensure that the Center for Family Life continues to innovate and extend Julie’s legacy.
DONATE TODAY
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Current and former “Life Lines” participants and staff – accompanied by maracas of “joyful noise” from the crowd – brought a perfect ending to the night with a spirited rendition of “The Heat of Sunset Park”!

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Click through our virtual journal from the event!

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Celebrating Community 2025: Honoring Co-Executive Director Julie Stein Brockway

by News and Events
PURCHASE TICKETS

You can purchase tickets for Celebrating Community by clicking the button above or by visiting this website. 

We are thrilled to announce that our annual Celebrating Community event will take place on October 21st from 6–8 PM at 501 Union in Brooklyn, NY 11231. 

Please join us in honoring Co-Executive Director Julie Stein Brockway before her retirement (or, in her words, “rewirement”) in December 2025. 

Together, we will celebrate Julie’s leadership over the past 43 years, including the founding of the nationally-recognized “Life Lines” Community Arts Project, her decades-long advocacy alongside community members for the creation of Sunset Park High School, and the growth of free, high-quality programs that today engage 8,000 youth and family members across 11 Sunset Park schools. 

Learn more about purchasing event tickets, placing a tribute ad, and/or donating!

Watch A Reflection on 40 Years | Life Lines Community Arts Project Documentary  to learn more about Julie’s work at CFLSP and within Sunset Park over the past four decades.

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Save the Date: The Extra Mile 2025

by News and EventsYouth and Community Development & School Partnerships
RSVP & PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

We are delighted to announce that we will be holding our annual staff recognition Extra Mile event in-person on Tuesday, June 10th, from 6-8pm at L’Wren in Sunset Park, Brooklyn!

Please join us here in Sunset Park to celebrate Center for Family Life’s “Life Lines” partnership with public schools, MS 136 and MS 821. Our unique collaboration engages students in interdisciplinary projects that blend academic subjects with the arts to build community in the classroom and enrich student learning.

We are grateful for this partnership and are excited to recognize the MS 136 and MS 821 principals and our Life Lines teaching artists. We look forward to celebrating decades of creative collaboration!

Watch our “A Reflection on 40 Years | Life Lines Community Arts Project Documentary” above to learn more about our partnership which has spanned four decades. 

RSVP & PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

You can purchase tickets for the event by clicking the button above or by visiting this website. 

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May: Life Lines Community Arts Project & SPHS Present “WITH LOVE”

by News and EventsYouth and Community Development & School Partnerships

Life Lines Community Arts Project is a free, nationally-recognized year-round arts and leadership program for youth, ages 10-21, that brings together the arts, education and social work to engage young people in group experiences that promote individual growth, encourage mutual aid, develop leadership, and build community.

Each year, Life Lines presents an improvisational play that brings to life the struggles and vitality of young people and families in our diverse neighborhood. Although there is a skeletal outline of scenes, there is no written script for the final show. Instead, characters play out their situations in improvised dialogue that changes from performance to performance.

"WITH LOVE" - The E-Sports Tournament

“WITH LOVE” – The E-Sports Tournament

Youth are directly involved in each stage of the spring show design process. Through character development, creative writing, community research, dance, music, and visual art, members share with staff their ideas, feelings, and experiences — these are integrated into original pieces for the production. Following a fall semester of dance, vocal and improvisational acting skill development, our auditioned Repertory Company meets twice a week and participates in a February rehearsal retreat to select the themes and develop core content for the show. The January – April “creation” phase culminates with a Camping Rehearsal retreat for the full cast of participants at the Fresh Air Fund in Upstate New York. Over three days we bring together the dances, songs, ensemble pieces, scenery and props created by all Life Lines groups and troupes. Then, it is back to Brooklyn to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!

Riley and her mother reconnect with empathy and understanding

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The Talk with Troy podcast giving everyone a laugh!

This year’s show, WITH LOVE, illustrates love in its many forms! Our show begins with a classroom of high school students with complicated feelings towards love; they start the show wondering whether the vulnerability and trust that love requires is worth the risk in a world that makes us feel like it’s “every person for themselves.” These characters include two mother-daughter duos navigating senior year in their own loving way, a teacher offering support to a student whose family members have newly arrived to this country, mischievous pranksters determined to bring chaos to the school day, an up-and-coming podcaster sharing his philosophy on life, and video gamer friends finding connection in the virtual world.

The scenes, songs, dances, and featured performances from SPHS student groups inspire us to choose love and notice that we’re surrounded by it all the time.

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We are thrilled that our performances reached 1,700 elementary, middle, and high school students and over 500 family and community members. We are incredibly grateful to our participants, parents, family members, school and community partners for supporting and joining us for these moving performances as our young people remind us that…

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“When hate tries to take the command,
Together we have the strength to withstand.
When it comes to the world that we’ll build,
We’ll build love!”

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Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the “Life Lines” Community Arts Project

by News and EventsYouth and Community Development & School Partnerships

In celebration of the nationally-recognized program Life Lines, we created a documentary showing how the program has grown since 1982 and exploring its impact on Sunset Park youth and the overall community over four decades. We would like to thank all Life Lines staff members and participants, both past and present, for being a part of this program and everyone who contributed to this documentary for making it so incredibly special!