Blog & News

Ask the second-graders at our Bernie Wohl Center about space, and the knowledge comes tumbling out. They talk over each other in their eagerness to share. “There are three shapes of galaxies! Spiral, elliptical and irregular.” “And we know one of the spiral galaxies, which is our galaxy Ð the Milky Way.” “Jupiter is the fifth […]

Check out photos of the Gala on Facebook (no Facebook account necessary.) Feel free to tag yourself and share! “What sort of society do we want to live in?” That was the question posed by Goddard Riverside Executive Director Roderick L. Jones in his opening remarks at our 17th annual gala. And it was answered throughout […]

Paul Krugman is not your typical economist. Ask him which books have influenced him the most, and he doesn’t name-drop John Maynard Keynes or Adam Smith. Instead he talks about James Baldwin and Isaac Asimov. “I was a middle-class kid from Long Island,” he said on a recent visit to some of our programs. “Books […]

Susan with a young Christian Susan Galligan wasn’t interested in working with children. When she retired from her job as a lawyer, she wanted to volunteer in adult literacy. But an advisor at a volunteer clearinghouse encouraged her to check out the Star Learning Center anyway. As soon as she saw Star’s cheerful book-lined space […]

Goddard Riverside’s longest-running and most popular fundraiser, our annual Book Fair, will take place this year on November 23 and 24 at the Bernie Wohl Center. The Book Fair is made possible by our longstanding partnership with the publishing industry, which generously donates brand-new bestsellers every year to be sold at half-price. The proceeds fund […]

As program Director Wayne E. Tyre stood in front of a crowd in the patio at Single Stop, he took the mic and confessed. When the idea of a client appreciation day was first presented to him, he wasn’t sold on it. That changed after the program staged its first such event in 2018. This […]

What’s more fun than giving free books to children? Well, nothing we know of, really! Goddard Riverside partnered with the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, NYCHA, the New York Public Library and other agencies to give away thousands of books to public housing residents at two events in June. One giveaway was at […]

Oumou Bah has a plan. First, she’ll get an undergraduate degree at New York University Ð “the perfect school” Ð in international studies and political science. Then, law school. She can tell you exactly why, in her quiet, rapid-fire way. “I grew up in Harlem and I observed how the prison system works in America,” […]

Angel Valerio wasn’t just looking for a job—he was looking for a role model. He found one through our newest program, Learning to Work. “I wanted to work for a company that’s black-owned,” said the 17-year-old Bronx resident. “I’d like to go into business myself so I wanted to learn the steps.” The program placed […]

A couple of times a month Steven Schmidt spends lunchtime with his friends at our Senior Center on Columbus Avenue. “There’s a table of Spanish-speaking ladies and I often sit with them,” he says. He likes to practice his language skills while catching up on what’s happening in their lives. What’s unusual is that Schmidt […]