Neighbors Together is committed to ending hunger and poverty in the Ocean Hill/ Brownsville/ Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, one of the lowest income communities in the United States.

November 2008

Dear Friends:

I am pleased to share our annual report for our 2008 fiscal year.

From July 2007 to June 2008 Neighbors Together:

• Served 90,655 meals (a 21% increase over last year, and 44% more than two years ago).
• Increased the number of children we see by 66% and senior citizens by 38% as a result of offering our evening meal five nights per week.
• Implemented a comprehensive strengths-based case management model, facilitated by our full-time social worker, that continues to meet immediate needs while emphasizing long-term planning to help our clients move beyond merely coping with emergency situations.
• Provided advocacy/case management to 786 individuals from September 2007 to August 2008, with a focus on supporting clients in setting long-term goals that empower them toward greater stability.
• Initiated a relationship with the Project for Psychiatric Outreach to the Homeless, a city-wide program that provides a psychiatrist on-site at Neighbors Together once a week.
• Piloted the replication of our case management model by providing a full-time Advocate to the Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger (BSCAH). Expanding our Empowerment Program model at BSCAH offers enormous potential to provide critical assistance to those clients we wouldn’t otherwise see at Neighbors Together, and BSCAH does not have to duplicate our social service structure to provide a vital service to their clients.
• Continued to host weekly or bi-weekly meetings to discuss how poverty and hunger impact our community; through these meetings we direct our neighbors and clients to coalitions designed to create solutions to these problems at the city, state and national levels.
• In March, we brought a group of more than twenty Community Action Program members to Albany as part of the Empire State Economic Security Campaign to participate in Legislative Education and Action Day (LEAD), one of the largest mobilization efforts of low-income New Yorkers at the state level. This was an important opportunity for our clients to gain hands on lobbying experience and advocate for just policies for low-income people before the passing of the New York State Budget.
• Conducted a comprehensive voter registration campaign led by members of our Community Action Board from July through early October. Our Community Action Board members talked to our soup kitchen guests, encouraged them to register, and assisted them in filling out the voter registration forms. As we approach a major presidential election, this has been an opportune time to educate our neighbors about their voting rights and empower them to become civic participants.
• Increased our overall fundraising by 35% over the previous 12 months, which is extremely helpful right now and will be critical to our ability to maintain our services amid severe economic downturn. We increased funding in every category and had major increases in corporate, religious and individual giving.

The following is an overview of Neighbors Together’s income and expenses for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2008.

Total Support & Revenue: $713,613

Program Expenses:

Community Café: $318,563
Empowerment Program: $152,876
Community Action Program: $47,825

Total Program Expenses: $519,264
Management & General: $55,863
Fundraising: $52,199
Total Expenses: $627,326

Total Net Assets: $747,797

Thank you for all of your support in our work to end hunger and poverty.

Ed Fowler
Executive Director

Neighbors Together is tax exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.