( ENSPIRE News ) BSE Global’s Read Across Brooklyn, 20 Volunteers Visited a Childhood Development Center
ENSPIRE Contributor: Jack Rich
Last month, BSE Global teamed up with Bedford Stuyvesant Early Childhood Development Center (BSECDC) for a day of reading. This is part of BSE’s Read Across Brooklyn campaign, an initiative presented by Qatar Airways, designed to encourage passion and thoughtfulness about reading through reading and gifting books to Brooklyn students, as well as other items.
In last month’s event, 20 BSE Global volunteers travelled to BSECDC sites and set up in reading corners. Here, the volunteers read to the students and created a warm and positive environment for the students to ask questions, participate in the reading, and grow comfortable in a reading community. BSE Global then went a step beyond this event. With the help of Brooklyn Book Bodega, they donated 800 books and many beanbags to BSECDC to expand their central library. Angela Terry, the Executive Director of BSECDC, said she was “truly grateful” for BSE Global’s investment in “[their] children’s joy, imagination, and future.”
Inspiring more than just literacy, however, the event also had many photos taken by middle school photographers from the Meyer Levin School for the Performing Arts. These students were part of the photography club, and the school’s principal, Jamie Hendrickson, called the event an “amazing moment” for the students to “gain real-world experience early, engage with their craft, and learn the importance of giving back to their community.”
As Angela Terry put it, the event serves to remind us of “how powerful community can be when we come together to support children.”
BSE Global is a company that owns and operates Barclays Center, the Brooklyn Nets, and the New York Liberty, among others. To learn more about them, you can click here.
BSECDC is a center that was originally founded in 1966 to fight in the War on Poverty. Since its inception, it’s grown from one center in a church’s basement to now operating 6 sites across Brooklyn. It aims to deliver high-quality developmental services to low-income families and, according to their 2023 Annual Report, served 267 families in the Bed-Stuy area. To learn more about them, you can visit their website here.
Meyer Levin School is a school that places emphasis on the performing arts as well as athletics and academics, and seeks to promote creativity and exploration in all areas. If you would like to see more about them, you can click here.
Brooklyn Bodega is an organization that seeks to provide books to families and children in Brooklyn that are classified as “book deserts.” For more information about them, their website is linked here.
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