Meet Robert Brown
Program Director for Directions for Our Youth at Butler Cornerstone Community Center, Mott Haven Fridge Network Distributor
Briggs Luisa Negrón
“I'm a lifelong Bronx resident, I love the Bronx, have not worked anywhere else but in the Bronx. And I’m just trying to make sure that people know the Bronx is a great place to be and that we have some pretty cool things going on.”
Meet Robert Brown, a Bronx resident and Program Director of Directions for Our Youth at Butler Cornerstone Community Center, as well as a Mott Haven Fridge Network Food Distributor. His role as the program director is to directly service the people of the Claremont section of the Bronx, focusing on providing safe spaces, vocational opportunities, and resources to four specific groups: elementary school children, middle school children, highschoolers, and young adults.
Speaking on his motivation for youth service work, Robert noted his own transformative experience with the Millbrook Houses community center as a young man in the Bronx.
“I got into the youth development work because I was a community center kid, I lived it. The community center was the safest place for me to be at a young age and I was able to find adults that cared about young people and made sure that we were safe. [In the 80’s and 90’s in the South Bronx] you either was going to be an athlete or you was going to be a drug dealer, so most young people either wanted to be the guys that drove the fancy cars in the street or you was the guy that you see in your local playground that played basketball. So I started out being an athlete and then I ended up being a knucklehead at a young age,” Robert explained. At this period of his life, Robert met Moses, the then assistant director at Millbrook House's community center. “[He] grabbed me by my collar like, ‘hey I don't want to see you keep doing this knucklehead stuff on the street!’ and he put me under his wing and showed me some love that I never got before from somebody and so that's what made me do the work that I do. I try to replicate the same level, just showing young people some love and trying to build lasting and trusting relationships with young people.”
Carrying this idea of building trusting relationships with the youth in the Bronx into every sphere of his work, Robert provides resources and support as the Program Director of Directions of our Youth to his entire community.
One resource that Robert and Butler Cornerstone Community Center have been able to provide for the community is expansive and reliable wifi for kids to do homework, browse the web, and use the internet with consistent access and quality. In partnership with the New York City Department of Youth & Development, they recently expanded access to wifi throughout their entire community center, further allowing kids access to wifi and technology which was certainly lacking beforehand.
“One of the things about our community that we work in, which is the Claremont section of the Bronx, is that we are a technology starved community.” Robert noted, “so one of the things that happened with this private public partnership [with Deblasio and the New York City Department of Youth & Development] is that they upgraded our internet inside of our community center, which allowed our young people in the center be able to jump on to the internet and have standard connection without any lags” Especially considering the added challenges of covid, internet accessibility in the community center has made online resources exponentially more accessible to young people, and allowed for Robert to adapt his cohort programs with elementary school students, all the way up to young adults to hybrid online and in person formatting.
Furthermore, Robert noted the importance of the food service work they provide at the community center, beginning at the onset of the pandemic. His job at the start of the pandemic was to try to get healthy food back to the community, which was not very easily accessible. Around the location of the community center, on 170th and Webster Avenue, there was an abundance of fast food restaurants and bodegas, but not many ways to acquire healthy food options. To combat this issue, Robert began working with World Central Kitchen to provide meals to the community. They provided about 1,000 meals everyday, even through the difficulties of the pandemic.
“Our community came together to help assist us… to make sure that community residents got food. They helped spread the word, they encouraged their community members ‘hey if you need food go to the community center they got healthy food’ and we did that seven days a week from the start of the pandemic to the end of June and we never had not one issue not nothing. People came and got food not only for themselves but also for their neighbors that couldn't come out to get food.”
However, challenges arose around June when funding for specialized food programs started to run out. Around this time, Robert paired up with Mott Haven Fridge Network, and for about six to eight weeks has been receiving fresh produce directly from Mott Haven. He is then able to provide said food to all the diverse groups of people in the community.
“We are a very immigrant rich community, we have a lot of families from African countries, from Latin countries, and so they are able to come to the DFOY community center and get fresh fruits and vegetables and not worry about immigrant status. The community can just come pick up what they need and not have to worry about if somebody gonna come and harass them about they immigration status or someone is gonna put them down because they getting something for free out of the community.”
Robert's commitment to extending resources to the youth, providing for his community, and extending a hand to anyone that might need it is evident in the initiatives he drives as Program Director as well as in his personal drive and approach to community and youth work. From a place of genuine care and love, he tries to build and maintain connections with young people and help them pursue their individual goals, furthering their personal and professional passions.
Meet Robert Brown.
Learn more about Robert’s work with Directions For our Youth at Butler Cornerstone Community Center.
Make a contribution to Mott Haven Fridge Network to help Robert provide dignified food access to residents of the Bronx.