We have joined forces with the All the Way Live Foundation, a California-based nonprofit that recruits at-risk young people off the streets and encourages them to express themselves through dance, to host the East Coast vs. West Coast B-Boy Break-dancing Battle on April 10, 2010 at Queens Community House.  Over 400 people are expected to attend the battle, which will consist of a series of competitions between break-dancers from the Queens Community House Evening Teen Center in Forest Hills and All the Way Live’s dancers from California. Cash prizes will be awarded to winners. 

Mike Zevon, Director and former participant of Queens Community House’s Evening Teen Center in Forest Hills organized this competition in order to gather community members and draw their attention to the major cuts to afterschool and youth development programs proposed in New York City and State’s FY2011 budgets.
 
“Programs that provide a safe space for young people to congregate and engage in youth development activities are vital to promoting healthy communities and necessary for working parents.  Unfortunately, they are often the first to be cut because their impact is hard to quantify since they have successfully averted negative outcomes,” says Irma Rodriguez, Executive Director of Queens Community House.

Since Queens Community House offers services to people ages two and up, young people can flow seamlessly between programs as they age out of one and into another.  All the Way Live’s mission is in line with the founding principle of Queens Community House’s Hot Spots Teen Outreach Program, which connects with young people on their own turf—streets, parks and other hangouts—and draws them into supervised activities and athletics.  

“It was the place that my son was able to hang out and be with his friends all year long in spite of attending different schools.  When he went off to boarding school, the Community House was the first hangout he would check out as soon as he got home.  He always found someone and an age appropriate activity to get involved with.  From 1st grade until he graduated High School, the Community House still had something of interest for him, and it kept him constructively active,” says Selma Castro whose daughter, Madison is enrolled in Queens Community House’s Early Childhood Center.

All are welcome to attend the April 10th event, which will take place at 108-25 62nd Drive in Forest Hills from 3pm to 9pm.