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December: Holiday Season at the Center

by News and Events

Support CFL in the last two days of 2024!

This holiday season, the Center for Family Life is so grateful for supporters like you who make the work we do possible. With your support, at this special time of year we go above and beyond in all of our programs to share holiday foods, gifts and clothing with the families who come to our doors.  

Thanks to your contributions, between Thanksgiving and Christmas the Center was able to provide over 400 turkeys to neighbors in Sunset Park! We are especially grateful to NYC Council Member Alexa Aviles, New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes, City Harvest, and the Skanska company for their generous contributions to the Center for Family Life’s food pantry this holiday season. Donations of turkeys and all the trimmings helped more of our neighbors to have festive and fulfilling feasts this year.

 We are also grateful for the generosity of St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church — who donated so many toys to the Center — and for our case planners in the Family Counseling Program who distributed the gifts to parents.  

Our Adult Employment Program also provided toys and hosted a toy giveaway, where families picked up wrapped presents for their children. Some parents came to the Center while their children were in school, and sometimes it was a family affair to pick up gifts!

CFL’s School Based Youth and Community Programs were also busy this holiday season hosting holiday sing-alongs, plays, and gingerbread house-making events in the 11 schools where we offer afterschool programming to in Sunset Park. 

Additionally, we are grateful for our wonderful Board of Directors who donated scarfs and gloves to the Center, and for a holiday grant from the United Neighborhood Houses which allowed our Family and Community Supports Program to buy winter coats and holiday gifts for community members in need. As we head toward the coldest months of winter, it’s more important than ever that our neighbors have protective and warm clothing to get them through this winter. Your end of year donation today will help us to ensure that there is one less neighbor without food or warm winter clothing. If you haven’t already, please consider donating to the Center. 

It’s always been our mission to be a resource to our neighbors in Sunset Park; seeing everyone come-and-go from the Center — whether to give or receive gifts — made us grateful to be in a community where we all strive to include each other in our festivities and celebrations. The ways we support each other in our community is, in and of itself, something to celebrate as we end 2024 and enter a new year. 

In utmost gratitude, and with warmest wishes for the New Year, 

The Center for Family Life in Sunset Park  

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December: Holidays in Sunset Park

by Economic Well-being ProgramsNews and Events

The holidays are an incredibly special time for family and friends to spend time together and celebrate, strengthening bonds and giving us all the chance to feel loved and appreciated. However, for those who are far from home, who have very limited financial resources even to satisfy basic needs, or who have no stable shelter or holiday gifts or food, the holidays can be a time where what we do not have and what we cannot give our children is especially painful.

This year has been difficult for many children and families in our community, as families with low wage jobs and little job security continue to deal with social, emotional and financial hardships as we move through the post-pandemic recovery. Since September 2022, thousands of new migrants have arrived in New York City. A majority of these families crossed the border with no belongings and are living in shelters or overcrowded apartments. Since these families are already experiencing significant financial constraints, most cannot afford warm clothing this winter, let alone holiday gifts and special meals.

To support our clients this season and to reduce their stress, we reached out to our friends, donors, our Board of Directors and community to help families celebrate the holidays!

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Our Community Services Program and Adult Employment Program have been busy this winter distributing warm clothing to clients. After hearing that many of our clients lack appropriate clothing for the cold, our generous donors and Board of Directors quickly helped us to purchase coats, hats, scarves and gloves to distribute. We are so glad that we can help to keep our community members warm this winter.

Each year, Center for Family Life’s Family Counseling and Adult Employment Programs purchase and accept donated gifts to give to our families in need. These items are delivered to CFL, wrapped and distributed to parents so that parents have gifts and toys to give to their children for the holidays. Thank you to everyone who supported the purchase of these gifts, the children were so excited!

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With your help, children and their families received gifts through our Family Counseling and Adult Employment Programs!

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Every holiday season is busy for us here at CFL, especially for those in our food pantry who work extra hard to put together special food packages. In November, in addition to our regular distribution, our food pantry gave out 240 turkeys for families to take home for their Thanksgiving dinners!

We are truly so grateful to everyone who helped make this a joyous holiday season for our clients, we could not do this without your support. We are proud to have such dedicated partners and excited to continue to serve our wonderful community in 2024.

From all of us at Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, warm wishes for a

Happy New Year!