Welcome to Broadway Stages’ Spotlight, where we feature local shops, restaurants, organizations, individuals, and venues. In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we are featuring some of New York City’s Latinx All-Stars. This week, the spotlight shines on El Puente.

In 1982, Luis Garden Acosta, Eugenio Maldonado, and Dr. Frances Lucerna founded the nonprofit organization El Puente. The mission of El Puente is to inspire and nurture leaders for peace and justice. Headquartered in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, El Puente’s initiatives focus on fighting for a wide variety of social justice issues expressing their mission largely through visual and performative arts.

In 1993, Dr. Frances Lucerna helped found the A-rated El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice (a NYC public high school) in Brooklyn. The Academy was created in partnership with the NYC Department of Education (DOE) and New Visions for Public Schools. It was the nation’s first public school for human rights and a Community School model and is part of the NYC DOE’S Expanded Success Initiative.

The Academy has been highlighted in the Eisenhower Foundation report, “What Works: Public School Reform.” Also, a Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education study by Jacqueline Ancess and Bethany Rogers praised the public high school’s structure and emotional-social connection.

The El Puente Green Light District (GLD) is an initiative to preserve, grow, green, and celebrate Williamsburg’s Southside community. The GLD’s five focus areas are affordable living, arts and culture, education, green spaces and environmental justice, and health and wellness. GLD’s goal is to put the power of transformation in the hands of its residents and stakeholders. Some projects that they have championed include:

●   MS 50/ El Puente Community School

●   “Nuestro Aire/ Our Air” (a citizen science project monitoring the toxic air quality in Los Sures)

●   Cultural Blueprint for Community Planning

●   Community Artists Development and Resource Exchange (CADRE)

El Puente has 12 fundamental principles, one for each month. For example, the principle for September is “Creating Community.” In September, they strive to build bridges of personal relationships to advance the human condition wherever we are. What better way can you help create community than by giving to the Luis Garden Acosta Legacy Fund? Your donation is an investment in the long-term sustainability, growth, and expansion of El Puente’s efforts to build a better future for the entire community in Williamsburg and across the globe.