Blog | Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture

Ethics for Children Service Project – Fun Day for Refugee Families

This weekend the Ethics for Children program held a Family Fun Day for about 50 children and adults. This wasn’t just an event for our families. We invited families from the local sanctuary shelter to join us! Working in collaboration with Rachel Lori from Gowanus Mutual Aid, we extended the invitation to families newly arrived in NYC. Thanks to the help from guest artists the kids and their families were treated to all kinds of fun activities including a lesson in plate spinning with Laine Barton, making sock puppets with Katrina Avino-Barracato, and learning traditional Mexican dances with Alda Reuter & Benjamin Perez Hidalgo. Rounding out the event, we shared a meal with many treats made by EfC families and everyone took advantage of the yard to visit and play on the sunny spring day.

Collection of Feminine Products for Low Income Teens to Support Public Library Program

The Brooklyn Central Library will have a distribution of feminine products for low-income teens, called “Pink Moon”. It is a very needed project, as feminine products are a monthly need, they are expensive and hard to acquire through public programs, particularly for teens, who don’t have access to the same services as adults and don’t always have an adult in their lives who can help them navigate governmental help.
In support of that program, we are collecting feminine products at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture at 53 Prospect Park West, tomorrow, Sunday, from 10:30-1pm. If you can bring some products (please see list below), look for Taty.
Alternatively, you can make a financial donation for the purchase of the products at: http://bsec.org/donate/ ( please write Pink Moon on the notes so we know what the donation was for) by Sunday night, April 2, as we will purchase the products from donations on Monday.

The list of products they need is below:
New and wrapped reusable period underwear
New and wrapped reusable period cloths
New and wrapped menstrual cups
New/unopened boxes of maxi pads and tampons
Lose, individually wrapped tampons and maxi pads
Disposable period panties

Remembering BSEC’s History – Patsy Tran Berkman

Patsy Tran Berkman is an alumna who is currently 86 years old, but who was, in her childhood, part of what is now our Ethics for Children program. We are lucky to have people like her, who have saved a special place in their hearts for us, even so many years later. Her son, Don Berkman, reached out to us to find out how to honor his mom on her birthday, by making a donation to our scholarships for our Ethics for Children Program, so another child, like she was then, would be able to attend our classes at no cost because of her donation. She has been kind enough to share a message with us and to prepare a special video for the kids.

Her testimonial and videos are below:

As I enter my 86th year on this Earth, I look back on my days at Brooklyn Ethical with fondness. I began my education there in Kindergarten. I remember the big staircase that took me to my class. How I loved the teacher and all the activities. I stayed until 8th grade. I remember we took our graduation photos in the front of the building on the steps. I live the tenets Brooklyn Ethical Culture taught me every day.

Lessons Learned at Brooklyn Ethical Culture School:
My childhood name was Patsy Tran, (now Pat Berkman). I attended Brooklyn Ethical Culture School from Kindergarten to 8th Grade. Memories flood my mind as I write about this wonderful school:

The delicious hot lunches
Our mid-morning snacks of bread and butter sandwiches
Bringing cans of food for the less fortunate at Thanksgiving.
Our trips across the street to the Meadow (Prospect Park)
From Art Classes to Shop we stretched our abilities and imagination.
I learned so much. One of the most important lessons I learned was to stand by my principles and fight for my beliefs.

We would also have weekly talks by Dr. Henry Neuman, one of the founders of the school. The talks were rather dry and we all, I’m afraid, half-listened.
But the story doesn’t end there. It seems I did listen very well to Dr. Neuman. He spoke about equality of religion – all religions. How “Man” is to be respected and treated with kindness and fairness. And these principles of life that he eschewed and the ethical behavior he spoke about is how I have tried to live my life.
Brooklyn Ethical Culture School was more than a school that taught subjects, it was a school whose philosophy was that all individuals have inherent worth and dignity. And we have a responsibility to each other, to Society, and to the community.
Brooklyn Ethical Culture, the school that enriched all who attended.

2022 In Person Events at BSEC

Dear friends,
As we wrap up 2023, it is always fun to look at community moments. We had so many fascinating talks and moving community moments on Zoom, but we also had a lot of in-person events.
Below are a few highlights:

We got together to collect toiletries for the women’s shelter, write postcards to voters, create paintings together in a multigenerational arts day, support the Hope Dinner, watch platforms together on hybrid days, and also celebrate some of our oldest members, like AnneMarie, Warren, and Ellen.

Our Ethics for Children Program had classes in person every Sunday, and once a month did some amazing service projects, showing real ethics in action. Some of their service projects included making food to fill a community refrigerator, collecting books to be distributed to families for free, cleaning a beach, supporting an animal shelter, and creating gifts in support of our community for the Hope dinner, members, and the Prospect gamers.

And our members shared holiday pictures with us, because BSEC members also like to have fun!

Ethics for Children Service Project – Food Insecurity

In November the service project that our Ethics for Children program participated in was related to the issue of food insecurity. Our goal was to stock the Community Fridge located beside the Wyckoff Museum (5816 Clarendon Road, Canarsie).

Students gathered at the BSEC Building to pack grab-and-go lunches. They decorated the bags, then packed them to overflowing. Their efforts yielded 30 nutritious lunches complete with beverages and homemade cookies! Thanks to additional donations collected by our EfC families as well as the larger BSEC community we were also able to fully stock the pantry shelves with nonperishables. We even made sure that the Little Free Library was full!