ACYFO FOOD PANTRY

In 1996 Mount Zion A.M.E. Church opened our weekly Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry programs, offering community members the opportunity to receive a nutritionally balanced meal and the opportunity to receive a monthly nutritionally balanced food package that provides three meals for three days for an individual or family (based on household size). To empower community members in making responsible and healthy food choices we utilize a client choice format where individuals are able to select food items from a variety of healthy options.  We continue to partner with the Food Bank of NYC, Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) and Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance (HPNAP) to provide resources to the community.

THE CONFINED ARTS (TCA) 

In 2022 we partnered with Isaac’s Quarterly LLC (IQ) a multimedia art and consulting company founded by Rev. Isaac I. Scott. IQ’s mission is to center the divine principles of unlimited love for humanity by fostering the transformative power of strategic arts engagement at every level from research and education to exhibition and performance. ACYFO ratified a MOU to provide fiscal sponsorship to IQ's subsidiary charitable program The Confined Arts.

The Confined Arts (TCA) is a program that cultivates and showcases the talents and creative voices of artists directly impacted by mass incarceration and intersecting social justice issues. TCA enables artists to express their voices through the visual and performing arts, poetry, and music as a means to abolish inhumane narratives and socially degrading stigmas that are used to describe the past experiences and limit the futures of individuals impacted by incarceration. Through artistry, collaborative activism, research, education and training, TCA equips artists to influence policy change, and use their artistry and knowledge to advocate for a world anchored on empathy and saturated with healing and prevention-based policies.

REENTRY THEATER OF HARLEM (RTH) 

Re-Entry Theater of Harlem is a justice-oriented rite of passage program for individuals who are justice-involved. Inspired by the insight that the transition from prison back into the community can be supported through community-based rites of passage performances, RTH utilizes art, theater, improvisation, mindfulness exercises and storytelling to help individuals address and overcome the shame, stigma, and trauma of incarceration. Ultimately, participants devise and enact a theatrical rite of passage performance to formally mark the transition into a new stage of life. RTH is designed to scale by training participants who have completed the program and committed themselves to facilitating rites of passage cohorts in their communities. The program was started by Alexander Anderson, who is a LMSW/CASAC and a person with lived experience in the NYS penal system. The idea for the creation of RTH was sparked by his love for performing arts and his experience as a returning citizen.  

MY ANGEL DOULA ALLIANCE 

To address the disparity in maternal and infant mortality rates in communities of color, this year ACYFO partnered with Jessica Maldanado, Founder of My Angel Doula Alliance to provide pre and post natal support to new families. Doulas are trained professionals who provide continuous physical, emotional and informational support to their new families before, during and shortly after childbirth. Together we will be able to provide  services including, birthing education, postpartum support, and pregnancy and infant loss counseling. The goal is to improve the quality of care of reproductive health, maternal and infant health, mental health, physical health, prenatal nutrition, environmental stress and other factors that have impacted  low income and marginalized families  for centuries.

Community Service Learning (CSL) initiative

In the summer of 2022 we launched The Community Service Learning (CSL) initiative which introduces youth and young adults ages 16-24 from the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) to community service and mobile media skills by fostering community engagement and documentary research opportunities. Throughout the six-week employment phase, participants were taught the skills and techniques of documentary filmmaking, graphic design, public speaking and community engagement.  

Through the following four components,  the CSL initiative  fostered dialogue among youth and young adults around collaborative solutions to the critical issue of violence in our city and nation. They unpacked their perspectives on public safety, and identified resources, tools, or skills they felt are needed for youth and young adults to protect themselves from law enforcement and the legal system and be able to thrive in life. 

Self-affirmation Poem: This multidisciplinary  creative writing, public, speaking, and media exercise, offered young people the opportunity and platform to express how they felt about themselves, their goals and their personal strengths.

See final assets here: https://youtu.be/5uPcXIHsM1o

You May Think: this media project asked youth and Young adults to explore and express common misperceptions and misconceptions that they have experienced in their lives. Young people, highlighted, that they were commonly misperceived and shared those misperceptions through visual artistry and creative writing.

See final assets here: https://youtu.be/tBgzbPbdGwc

Dear Parents: In this media project, youth and young adults each wrote letters to their parents, explaining what their perspectives were regarding the way they were being raised and treated as young adults. This project offers a lens into the thought process of young adults in challenging in-home domestic situations.

See final assets here: https://youtu.be/bf5_D1abBwU

ACYFO organizational logo was conceptualized, designed and voted on by the summer 2022 cohort of youth and young adults. 

Strategic Arts & Education (SAE) initiative

In September 2022 The Confined Arts was awarded a grant from The Ford Foundation d  in partnership with Another Choice Youth and Family Outreach, Inc.  the Strategic Arts & Education (SAE) initiative. The goal of the SAE is to provide free artistic literacy, professional development, and capacity-building to new as well as existing community-based artists, students, and advocates including justice-impacted people. The SAE also works to engage participants in utilizing the arts as a means to mitigate the imprint of the criminal legal system.

Youth Action YouthBuild

In January 2023 ACYFO partnered with Youth Action YouthBuild to provide their students with professional development training offered through The Confined Arts. Over the course of the next year, we look forward to providing YouthBuild students with professional development training weekly through 2023. 

Reentry Theater of Harlem

• In 2022, RTH continued its partnerships with ACYFO, the Coming Home program at Emmaus House, Stella Adler Center for the Arts, Central Synagogue, Who Decides, Inc.  and Humanities NY. 
• In 2022, RTH produced three justice-oriented performances. In April, RTH performed a play called  “We wear the Mask” at Central Synagogue and was hosted by Brian Stevenson. https://drive.google.com/file/d/11HrpOe5WFGzCZc_a71l_8MXHu6qJTxgq/view?usp=drive_web
• In June, RTH partnered with artist Rowan Renee to teach participants the art of “loom weaving” and understanding weaving as a metaphor for unity and community building. We also produced and performed a play called “Weaving a Community” to celebrate the graduates. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jzx54QUDso79kazAyNf9a4pQqw2Q4XY7/view?usp=share_link 
• In September, RTH partnered with the artist Kenneth Reams, founder of Who Decides, Inc., who spent two decades on death row and is now held in solitary confinement for more than ten years. 
• In January 2023, RTH co-produced with Tom Oppenheim, Arts Director of Stella Adler Center for the Arts, a Kenneth Reams art exhibition and performed a drama that was written by men incarcerated in Arkansas’s deathrow prison. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X-27a4RPRFsg-TweH23ulabbW5JRQPV3/view?usp=share_link

We discuss topics around, reproductive health, maternal health and wellness, childbirth education, postpartum care, lactation counseling, newborn care, housing, mental health, mental wellness, dating violence, healthy relationships, parenting, financial literacy, education, entrepreneurship, and more.

• In 2023 we hosted three Maternity Pantry events providing maternity essentials to young expectant mothers, and moms in need. The Maternity Pantry is a safe space where young mothers are able to drop in to get the support they need through workshops, peer engagement, and other resources. Mothers are able to connect with a doula and are provided with a hospital birthing bag.