Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, back row, left, in photo above, and Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, to the right of Silver, teamed up last Friday to present the Lower Eastside Girls Club — represented by several of its young members and its executive director, Lyn Pentecost, at right — with $500,000 in Community Capital Assistance Program Funds. The funds will be used in the construction of the Girls Club’s new Center for Community on Avenue D between Seventh and Eighth Sts.
The sustainably built “green” and technologically sophisticated Center for Community will house all Girls Club programming and the organization’s three social-venture businesses, commercial and small business incubator space, and mixed-income housing to be developed by a commercial partner, The Dermot Company.
The Lower Eastside Girls Club currently serves 500 youth ages 8 to 23 from low-income families. The organization anticipates this number will increase threefold to 1,500 girls and their families after the opening of the new facility, which is slated for early 2010.
“I’m thrilled to be able to support the Lower Eastside Girls Club and the valuable services they provide to promote the social, educational and professional growth of girls and young women in our Downtown community,” said Silver. “This new Center for Community will serve as a building block that provides its members with the tools they need to succeed in our fast-changing, high-tech world.”
The Lower Eastside Girls Club was founded in 1996 to address the disparity in services for girls in a neighborhood with two Boys’ Clubs but no comparable facilities for girls.
