Q and A with Damion Samuels about the Advance and Earn Program at the Stanley Isaacs Center on the Upper East Side
By Candice Charles
When we think about fellowship and communion, the virtual world may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But it has proven to be a powerful tool for community building for the Stanley Isaacs Center, a non-profit multi-service organization on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, in its partnership with Advance & Earn (A&E), a citywide training and employment program for New York City youth.
During the COVID-19 crisis, the Stanley Isaacs Center used the internet’s connective power for its Senior Supper, a gourmet four-course meal delivered to homebound community members that included a virtual space to meet and break bread. The Stanley Isaacs Center’s Senior Supper is an illustration of how, among the many challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has presented, there have also been many triumphs — and it shows what Advance & Earn has been able to achieve.
Advance and Earn
Advance & Earn is a New York City program that provides a continuum of education and employment services, from literacy instruction through advanced training and job placement or college enrollment, to opportunity youth (youth aged 16–24 who are not working and not in school). It is delivered by six service providers across the city, including Stanley Isaacs. The model developed based on lessons learned from earlier programs like the Young Adult Internship Program (YAIP) and the Young Adult Literacy Program (YALP), as well as through extensive feedback from nonprofits and young adults.
In partnership with the Department of Youth and Community Development and the NYC Young Men’s Initiative, NYC Opportunity launched Advance & Earn in February 2020, just a few months shy of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent citywide shutdowns. Despite the numerous difficulties associated with getting a workforce development program off the ground in the midst of a global pandemic, the program itself and its providers persevered.
Through offering three programmatic tracks, Pre-High School Equivalency (HSE), HSE Prep, and Advanced Training, the Advance & Earn model provides much-needed resources for the city’s youth population, including employer-recognized training and paid internships offered by a diverse cohort of city-based non-profits like Stanley Isaacs. Pandemic or not, these resources could not be deferred for the up to 116,998 16- to 24-year-olds across New York City who are out of school and out of work¹ (a pre-pandemic figure that is expected to have increased).
A Conversation with Damion Samuels
We spoke with Damion Samuels, the Senior Director of Youth Services and Community Engagement at the Stanley Isaacs Center (SIC), about the Center and about Advance & Earn. From social engagement, to education, to workforce development, Samuels has always been interested in how to engage and empower young people to create better outcomes for themselves, something he has been doing for over 25 years. Rooted deeply in activism, his philosophy of practice has extended to the work he has done so far within the walls of Stanley Isaacs.
But his role took on new meaning when the pandemic began to upend so many lives. Gathering in congregate spaces, where much community work is done, was no longer possible, a devastating reality that was shortly turned into an opportunity to adapt. With creating something new in mind, the Stanley Isaacs Center in conjunction with dedicated staff members like Samuels, piloted new programs like the community kitchen model to continue to serve the surrounding community.
Q: What is the Stanley Isaacs Center (SIC), its mission, and its function?
The SIC is a settlement house and community center that is embedded in a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) facility and has been in operation for nearly 60 years. First and foremost, its mission is to enable New Yorkers to live lives with dignity. As a demonstration of this commitment, Stanley Isaacs was one of the first Meals-on-Wheels providers in New York City and before the pandemic hit, it housed a congregate facility dedicated to serving food to all those in need. Stanley Isaacs, a place dedicated to improving community health and providing culinary hospitality, has become a beacon for after-school programs and community advocacy efforts. The center brings the concerns of the community to the forefront but never forgets the importance of doing work on the ground. From offering homework help and tutoring support, to providing yoga and calisthenics fitness classes, this center demonstrates how to keep community members both young and old engaged.
All this work is underpinned by an incredible philosophy: that there is no such thing as a disposable person, youth or otherwise, and that everyone deserves multiple chances. One of the principal ways that the SIC has lived up to this philosophy is by partnering with the city-wide Advance & Earn program to provide culinary training to otherwise disengaged youth.
Q: What are some of the COVID-related challenges and triumphs that the center has experienced?
Advance & Earn offers an in-person training model, and the first day its Stanley Isaacs culinary internships were supposed to begin was March 16th, 2020. These internships were meant to provide young people with paid opportunities to learn techniques to serve the greater public.
With lockdowns stifling the normal course of everyday life, Stanley Isaacs pivoted in order to best serve the interests of their first cohort of youth participants in their culinary arts program. They worked to place those receiving training where the jobs still existed such as in supermarkets and in food industry-related customer service roles. They also quickly transitioned to online instruction so that the learning did not have to stop.
Their quick thinking prepared them better for cohort 2, the incoming class to begin in September 2020. Knowing full well that they would be remote, the SIC doubled down on working creatively on how to better develop their students’ culinary skill sets, improve their institutional placements, and help their students focus less on the fancy restaurants downtown and more on hospitals, senior centers, and further supporting Meals on Wheels.
What SIC wanted to impress upon the youth under their tutelage was that it’s ok to broaden your lens. That not everyone will be a chef and that there are other opportunities including those in marketing, in food photography, and in working with nonprofits that are available. SIC taught the youth within their care that food is a function of health and wellness, a tool that can fight inequality and resource insecurity, and can address many of the social determinants of health.
Q: What was the Senior Supper initiative?
The Senior Supper was an event devised in response to COVID rates picking back up in the fall of 2020. It was done for two main reasons: to combat both social isolation and hunger for the most vulnerable community members. The mission of the Senior Supper was to specifically serve those that found themselves homebound. Stanley Isaacs thought, who better to provide these meals than their youth culinary training participants?
In the first installment of this event, 183 meals were put together and delivered directly to people’s homes with a recipe card and zoom link in tow. The recipients were all encouraged to eat together albeit, virtually.
In the second installment of this event, it was much the same in terms of what was provided except for one additional surprise- the musical accompaniment of members of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra as they brought Beethoven to life.
The seniors who participated had a fantastic view of the event, they could see that Stanley Isaacs and the youth they worked with were trying to do something different. It is not uncommon for those very same seniors to ask when the next one is coming. Thankfully there are plans to replicate this in the coming fall. It was not only great for the seniors but also rewarding for the youth to receive such positive and direct feedback.
Q: What additional efforts may the Stanley Isaacs Center be taking to support the surrounding community?
The Stanley Isaacs Center is constantly thinking of new ways to engage and be responsive to their community. The future appears bright with the upcoming introduction of community engagement managers made up of NYCHA residents themselves, the increased focus on food security, and the dedication to continuing to meet people where they are.
Stanley Isaacs has met, and continues to meet, the challenges of supporting the most vulnerable in the most unpredictable circumstances. The Advance & Earn cohorts that have received training in the culinary arts have played, and continue to play, an integral role in this work.
¹ 2018 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample, as analyzed by the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity Poverty Research Unit
