We are thrilled to be running in the TCS New York City Marathon on behalf of the Henry Street Settlement. Henry Street is a social service, arts, and healthcare organization located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Founded in 1893, it provides a wide range of programs and services to residents of the Lower East Side and other New Yorkers, including transitional and supportive housing, healthcare, education, vocational training, social services, and arts programs. HSS also runs the largest Meals on Wheels operation in Manhattan, four homeless shelters, and a workforce development center.
Our great-grandmother, Ruth Taube, started teaching sewing classes at Henry Street in the early 1960s. She became director of the Home Planning Workshop in 1966 and stayed for 54 years, teaching hundreds of Lower East Siders to sew until the pandemic forced her into early retirement (at 96 years old) in 2020.
A lifelong New Yorker, Grandma Ruth was raised in a tenement on Avenue D and East 5th Street and has served as a community pillar on the Lower East Side for the past 102 years (and counting!) In addition to teaching sewing and knitting at Henry Street, she developed programming to help residents with everything from shoe repairs to woodworking, organized summer trips for families to escape from the city heat, and, most importantly, been a trusted confidante to and advocate for her students. She has endless stories about how she would pick up the phone and call landlords to get rent extensions or sit by and counsel through difficult parenting situations. In 2008, when the Home Planning Workshop was nearly eliminated due to the financial crisis and citywide budget cuts impacted Henry Street, residents signed a petition on her behalf, and the New York City Housing Authority allocated funds to restore it.
Over the years, she has been recognized for her contributions with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fashion Institute of Technology, a Lower East Side Community Hero Award from FABNYC, and a “New Yorker of the Week” segment on NY1. She has also been featured in the New York Times and on an episode of My Grandmother’s Ravioli with Moe Rocca (see here for a clip of the Grandma Ruth magic).
The four of us are honored to be running on behalf of Grandma Ruth's seven great-grandchildren to celebrate her and Henry Street’s impact on the lives of so many New Yorkers. We have each pledged to raise funds (which we hope to exceed!) to contribute to Henry Street’s incredible work, and we ask you to please support us in our fundraising efforts as we take on this challenge.
As a reminder, all contributions are tax deductible and please don’t forget to ask for any corporate matching if you can. Hope to see you at the race in November!
THANK YOU!
Daphne, Justin, Kyle, and Sophie
