A Better Jamaica

A Better Jamaica

Engaged in activities designed to strengthen a set of southeast Queens communities known collectively as Jamaica!

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Family Movies in the Park

Strong communities provide ample opportunity for children and families to gather collectively to share experiences. These opportunities usually present themselves in the form of activities with few, if any, barriers to participate. These shared experiences are what knit the fabric of a community together. Since the summer of 2007, A Better Jamaica's Family Movies in the Park has addressed the shortage of these community building opportunities by exhibiting free family-friendly movies across four local parks. In doing so, we strengthen the community by providing an inexpensive opportunity for the renewal of community/family ties. Last summer we showed sixteen movies.

Jamaica311.com

Strong communities provide multiple means by which information can be disseminated in and throughout them. Increasingly key to the information dissemination mix, is the internet. Jamaica has heretofore lacked a community wide internet based means by which information can be disseminated in and throughout it. Phase 1 of the site was a relatively static site that required that entries be manually added and deleted. Phase 2 of Jamaica311's web site -- found at http://www.Jamaica311.com -- is dynamic and database driven. A weekly e-blast of events -- e-mailed to 650+ subscribers -- complements the web site and is key to keeping Jamaica311 at the top of user’s mind. We're currently in the process of developing Phase 3 of Jamaica311.com. It will incorporate news items and have other useful features.

Classic Film Fridays

Strong communities provide ample opportunity for individuals to gather collectively to share experiences. These opportunities usually present themselves in the form of activities with few, if any, barriers to participate. Family Movies in the Park was A Better Jamaica's first effort to create more of these shared experiences. In the summer of 2009, A Better Jamaica launched a second film series — Classic Film Fridays. This series presents five classic films curated around a theme. Last year’s theme was Classic “Monster” Film Fridays. The films are exhibited on a 25' inflatable screen and begin at dusk -- between 8:00 pm and 8:30 pm.

Jamaica Reads

Strong communities provide ample opportunity for non-related adults to support the educational needs of neighborhood children. These solutions are particularly efficient when they tap the underutilized adult resource of neighborhood senior-citizens. These solutions not only provide needed supplemental educational resources to children, but they also provide an opportunity for seniors to add another meaningful dimension to their lives. Jamaica Reads pairs senior reading buddies with first graders struggling with the acquisition of their reading skills.

Jamaica Solutions

Strong communities provide the opportunity for local organizations to share best practices. On Wednesday, November 17th, 2010, A Better Jamaica hosted Jamaica Solutions — a first conference designed to give the leadership of locally based/focused non-profits the opportunity to discuss their efforts and share best practices so that we can individually and collectively better serve our organizational constituents and the community. The first Jamaica Solutions featured youth sports; health; and arts roundtables. A second Jamaica Solutions — featuring local workforce development organizations — was held in 2013.

The Jamaica Ball

Strong communities provide the opportunity for local non-profits to support each other. On May 16th, 2015, A Better Jamaica will host the 4th annual Jamaica Ball. The occasion will mark the fourth year in a row that A Better Jamaica will help local non-profits in Jamaica – particularly small ones – help themselves. Tickets for the Jamaica Ball are $50 each. Participating organizations keep $45 of the $50 ticket price. Generous corporations — like founding sponsor jetBlue — allow us to pass on the bulk of the ticket sale price by underwriting the cost of the event.

JAC’s Holiday Music

Strong communities understand that the arts play a critical role in the health and well being of any community. A Better Jamaica’s “Jamaica Arts Council” (JAC) is a grass-roots arts service effort dedicated to supporting the growth of the arts in Jamaica. JAC maintains a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/JamaicaArtsCouncil. The first of JAC’s programs was “JAC’s Holiday Music” – an eight night live music performance series that took place on the token booth level of the Jamaica Center subway station. JAC's Holiday Music premiered in December of 2013 and returned in December of 2014. JAC’s second program — the AirTrain Jazz Festival (see below) — is a partnership with the Sutphin Boulevard Business Improvement District.

Cinema En Español

Strong communities don’t just tolerate their newest members, they embrace them. In the past ten years, the population of Spanish speaking immigrants living in downtown Jamaica, Queens has exploded. Today’s southeast Queens Spanish speaking immigrant population is largely from Mexico, western Caribbean countries like Guatemala and El Salvador, and South American countries like Columbia and Ecuador. While these immigrants have been welcomed, that welcome has not always felt like an embrace. A Better Jamaica’s Cinema En Español is designed to address this problem by providing a cultural embrace in the form of a free Spanish language movie series for the newest members of the Jamaica community. A second target audience is those who simply enjoy a foreign film.

Jamaica Shoots!

Strong communities not only understand that much of what teenagers do is designed to get attention, but they encourage positive attention-getting behavior by celebrating it. In the summer of 2014, A Better Jamaica piloted Jamaica Shoots! by putting high-end digital cameras in the hands of teens and charging them with "shooting" their peers engaged in positive activities like sports/dance. In documenting and sharing positive teen behavior, we are endeavoring to encourage as many youth as possible to engage in positive behavior.

The AirTrain Jazz Festival

Strong communities not only understand the value of the arts to the vitality of the community, but they take steps to encourage the growth of the arts sector. In the Fall of 2014, A Better Jamaica joined forces with the Sutphin Boulevard Business Improvement District to launch a pilot of The AirTrain Jazz Festival. The festival presented eight consecutive Thursday evenings of live jazz from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm on the concourse level of Jamaica’s AirTrain Station – the transfer point between the JFK AirTrain, and the Jamaica transportation hub that features the Long Island Railroad’s Jamaica station and the New York City subway system’s Sutphin Boulevard station.

Please Donate!

As a non-profit, A Better Jamaica survives on donations. If you are so inclined, please click on the “Donate” button above to make a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you!

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