Director’s Update (April 2024)

It feels like yesterday that I wrote my first “Director’s update” to the Pratt Center community. Now that I’m seven months in, I’m thrilled to share more of the great work and forward motion at Pratt Center.

Over the last several months, the team has done some internal reflection and strategic sharpening of our priorities for the next several years. As a result, we will be expanding our climate justice work, deepening our community-engaged research and policy work and increasing our capacity to conduct original research and data analysis to support the organizing and advocacy of our BIPOC community-based partners. We will also ensure that racial justice will be a thread through all of this work. 

On the climate justice front, we have named Rebekah Morris, a long-time Pratt Center staff member, as the Director of Climate Initiatives and are hiring for a Program Manager for Climate Initiatives to manage our EnergyFit program (see job posting here). Please help us spread the word! We have also begun retrofits of several homes in Brooklyn through our EnergyFit program, in partnership with Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation and IMPACCT Brooklyn, and have many more in the pipeline. 

We’ve launched new community-engaged research projects with the Rider’s Alliance, Good Old Lower East Side and the Racial Impact Study Coalition. We’ve also created a new framework, “Centering Communities” to be more intentional about our community engagement work. We are excited to be new members of the New York Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI) and to deepen our support of the growing land trust movement.

And to make all this work possible, we have hired a new Director of Development and Communications. I’m delighted to welcome Amelia Brod to the Pratt Center team. She has hit the ground running and will be helping to plan various activities as we kick off Pratt Center’s 60th anniversary. 

As a first phase of our 60th anniversary celebration, we’ll be hosting the first Taste of Made in NYC festival on May 18th, presented by the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This event will be the culmination of our 6th annual Made in NYC Week (May 10 –18) and will feature samples of food, beverages and other goods for sale from our Made in NYC network. Please find more information and buy tickets here. And look out for more ways to celebrate the long history and exciting future of Pratt Center in the coming months. I’m looking forward to celebrating Made in NYC and Pratt Center with you all soon!