A combination of donations and other financial assistance from various supporters was key to student success.

On May 27, Brooklyn College honored the incredible strength and perseverance the Class of 2021 displayed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic with a virtual commencement celebration. But it would be impossible not to also recognize the support students received to reach their academic goals, as approximately $2.1 million was raised through various channels throughout the last year.

At the forefront of the movement to provide students with the financial aid they needed was the Brooklyn College Foundation. Established in 1958, the Foundation is the engine that drives ongoing annual support for student scholarships and other philanthropic priorities, and the team kicked into high gear at the onset of the pandemic with various community partners.

Last spring, at the beginning of the pandemic, the Brooklyn College Foundation established a Student Emergency Fund to aid students affected by COVID-19. Over 500 individual donors stepped up and joined community leaders like The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, poverty-fighting organization Robin Hood, and The Tow Foundation to provide critical emergency support for the college’s students.

To ensure students stayed on track for graduation, the College was able to offer completion grants thanks to support from Foundation Board member Carol L. Zicklin ‘61, her husband Larry, and their children. The Zicklin Scholars Degree Completion Program has provided grants for students to take additional courses in summer and winter intercessions in order to help them complete their degrees.

A Brooklyn College Family Affair

Evan Silverstein is a graduate of the Class of 1976 and chair of the Brooklyn College Foundation Board of Trustees. Silverstein was one of the first donors to the Student Emergency Fund and is one of the fund’s lead supporters. He is particularly proud of the dedication Brooklyn College students are showing during the COVID-19 pandemic. He feels while a lot has been done to help, the Board knows its work is ongoing.

“The talent Brooklyn College students bring to the region must be allowed to flourish, and we remain devoted to offering this crucial support during these most difficult times,” Silverstein said. “Our students face unique challenges, but the COVID-19 pandemic added obstacles that required us to take our mission to another level. We are proud of the work we are doing for the students and the community, as Brooklyn College will continue to serve as an anchor institution for New York City moving forward.”

The philanthropic effort at Brooklyn College has felt like a family affair to many. In fact, Silverstein reconnected his good friend and fellow alumnus Michael Rabinowitz ’81 to the college more than a decade ago. Since that time, Rabinowitz has served as a regular donor and eventually created a scholarship fund in 2018 in his name for a cohort of five students to support over four years. He recently hosted a Zoom event with that cohort—one of whom now has an internship at his company—and he is excited to hear from them again soon. While he is planning to launch another scholarship program, Rabinowitz knows that offering varying modes of support has never been more critical than now.

“I feel it is important to connect with students,” Rabinowitz said. “It is not always about how much you can give financially, but how much time you can invest to make an impact on student lives and their futures.”

Florence Cohen Rosen ’59 graduated at a time when tuition at Brooklyn College was free. Wanting to pay that educational gift forward, she founded the Rosen Fellowship Program in 2011. This extremely successful and impactful project-based program—often including travel—provides worldly experiences students would not normally enjoy until later in their careers. But, when the pandemic made extensive travel impossible, she pivoted her support to provide students with generous gifts. This enabled many to realize their ultimate goal of graduation and others the opportunity to register for the classes they needed to graduate.

“I am very passionate about the Rosen Fellowship, but when it became obvious that traveling was unsafe during the pandemic, I felt it was important to offer immediate assistance as students worked toward their degrees and career goals,” Rosen said.

Supporting the Most Vulnerable Students

The college’s Immigrant Student Success Office (ISSO), which offers support to Brooklyn College’s immigrant students, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) who identify with the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAMERS) and first-generation students, also played a huge role supporting students through this difficult time. With the help of the Brooklyn College Foundation, ISSO was able to secure two relief grants from the poverty-fighting organization Robin Hood in July of 2020 and February 2021. The initial grant provided emergency assistance to 300 immigrant students. The second offered financial support for an additional 160 students who have lost low-wage jobs or who have other COVID 19-related emergency expenses, such as food, housing, and technology for remote learning. ISSO also worked with the Hispanic Federation and The City University of New York (CUNY) to help pay for DACA application fees for 20 students.

ISSO itself would not have been possible without the financial support of Brooklyn College Foundation Board member and graduate Irwin Federman ’56 and his wife Concepción, whose donation helped launched the Office in 2019, and who have continued their leadership support since then, helping to ease the burden of immigrant students at a time when it is needed more than ever.

“This pandemic has disproportionately impacted minority students and the majority of our undocumented, DACAmented, and first-generation immigrant students,” said Jesús Pérez, director of the ISSO. “In working with Robin Hood and others, we were able to secure another layer of support.”

Sidebar: The talent Brooklyn College students bring to the region must be allowed to flourish, and we remain devoted to offering this crucial support during these most difficult times. Our students face unique challenges, but the COVID-19 pandemic added obstacles that required us to take our mission to another level. We are proud of the work we are doing for the students and the community, as Brooklyn College will continue to serve as an anchor institution for New York City moving forward.
— Evan Silverstein ’76, chair of the Brooklyn College Foundation Board of Trustees

The help was not only financial. For students who are food insecure, the Brooklyn College Food Pantry, which receives funding from the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, also played an immensely important role during the pandemic. By using safe distribution techniques approved by the city and the state, the pantry has been able to safely serve 492 students since March 2020. It had 29 appointments scheduled for the month of April this year. The pantry is open every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., even through spring break and the summer.

To help students reach their career goals during this difficult time, the Magner Career Center at the college was able to raise money from alumni to pay students stipends for unpaid internships and similar opportunities.

“Stipend awards help current students take non-paid, off-campus opportunities related to their career, which could involve internships, volunteer efforts, off-campus research and student teaching,” Natalia Guarin-Klein, Magner’s Director said. “These were competitive and approximately 30% of students selected received these awards. They really could not have come at a better time, and we were thrilled to help through this program.”

Brooklyn College students also joined the effort to help their classmates. The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) at Brooklyn College led an effort to raise $40,000 in emergency-based grants. Aharon Grama, Chief of Staff of the Undergraduate Student Government explained that the effort involved asking students to donate their student activity fees that went into two separate funds: one for $20,000 grant for a Brooklyn College-based effort and another $20,000 for a CUNY-based University Student Senate (USS) program. While all the monies collected went to deserving Brooklyn College students, the USG partnered with the USS to help with the logistics of reviewing applications and other responsibilities associated with the effort.

“We wanted to help as many Brooklyn College students as possible, so working with the USS to help more students made sense,” Grama said. “There was a lot of planning and work that needed to be done, so it was great that we were able to make it happen.”