Caravan of Dreams launches crowdfunding campaign to secure future

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

Caravan of Dreams, now in its 33rd year of serving organic/vegan food in the East Village, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to ensure its survival.

Manager Abe Gross (below right with owner Angel Moreno) said the restaurant on Sixth Street "had a slow summer," and he was "hoping for a stronger September." They need the money for "sustainability."

Moreno, who started the restaurant in 1991, said, "When we want to serve others, it comes back to us. It's about being grateful. There is no place for complaining, bad emotions or energy. Just be grateful!"

You can find the GoFundMe page here. 

Caravan of Dreams is at 405 E. Sixth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Help for longtime LES photographer Marlis Momber

Image via GoFundMe 

Friends of longtime Lower East Side documentarian and activist Marlis Momber are raising funds as she continues to recover from cancer. You can read more about the campaign and her work at this GoFundMe link. 

Below is her 1978 documentary "that depicts the 'before gentrification occurrences' in the Lower East Side in the fall of October 1978 with Chino Garcia & Bimbo Rivas" ...

 

Tenants crowdfund to aid East Village super critically injured in high-speed car collision

Past and present tenants of 305 E. 11th St. and 310 E. 12th St., adjacent multifamily residential buildings between First Avenue and Second Avenue, have come together to help their longtime super who was severely injured after being struck by a speeding car while visiting his native Albania.

According to a GoFundMe campaign, Haxhi Haxhaj, a super here for 30-plus years, was on his annual trip home last month when he was hit while crossing the street near the family house in Kosovo.

Per the campaign:

He ...  is currently in a medically induced coma, facing a long and difficult road to recovery. His wife, Sadete; children Gentiana and Elbasan (who grew up in our building); daughter-in-law and granddaughters are now with him. 

Haxhi is no ordinary super. Available night and day, he keeps our building spotless and can be seen every morning sprucing up our 12th Street sidewalk and beloved tenants' garden. 

A doting husband, father and, most recently, grandfather, nothing makes him happier than sharing a recent photo and story of his granddaughters. Please help us support this hard-working and devoted man with his extensive medical needs and his family with travel and living expenses abroad. 

According to organizers, he was taken by a medivac flight to a hospital in Istanbul, where he remains in a coma.

You can find the crowdfunding campaign at this link.

Lower East Side venue Rockwood Music Hall crowdfunding to stay alive

Rosewood Music Hall, 196 Allen St., between Houston and Stanton, is in danger of closing after 18 years of providing multiple stages for independent and emerging musicians. 

As Variety reported, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles launched a #PreserveRockwood benefit concert series that begins on Friday. 

The venue also announced a GoFundMe campaign yesterday to help stay in business. 

Per the appeal: 

Like many small, independent music venues across the country, Rockwood is struggling to stay open. Without the support of artists, the music community and fans of music, Rockwood is in danger of permanently closing, shutting off a vital place for independent and up-and-coming musicians to develop their artistry and give fans the opportunity to discover new music in a live setting. 

You can find the campaign here. Find details on the benefit shows at this link.

Support for the family of Salvino Luis Ceballos

Members of the East Village Community School are mourning the loss of Salvino Luis Ceballos, a second-grader who died suddenly on Saturday at age 7. 

Community members have launched a GoFundMe to help his devastated parents and younger siblings with expenses. Here's more from the campaign: 

Salvino Luis Ceballos, our beautifully wide eyed, sweet, kind, curious, scrappy, energetic, dog loving, Pokemon collecting, bike riding, EVCS second grader and community member passed away tragically Saturday night June 3, 2023. It feels as if we are frozen. There were no warning signs and his sudden loss is completely unconscionable. 

Salvino had the most beautiful way of connecting with anyone he met. When his next-door neighbor told Salvino she didn't have any friends in the building, he knocked on her door shortly after with another adult neighbor and introduced them! His heart was giant. He made everyone laugh, included everyone in on the secret, and let anyone and everyone who crossed his path know how much fun there was to be had, and where to find it... 

Every dollar can help ease the financial burden for Salvino's grieving family, regardless of contribution size. We hope this beautiful family finds a way forward with ongoing family support, continued family therapy, and visits from close family and friends both here and from France. 

You can find the campaign link here.

Image via GoFundMe

Help for A&C Kitchen, which remains closed after a late-February fire

Photo of Mr. Li from March by Stacie Joy 

On Feb. 27, a two-alarm fire broke out at 136 Avenue C between Eighth Street and Ninth Street. 

Initial reports blamed a "lit object" discarded from a residential window down to the courtyard in the rear of the building. Unfortunately, a groundfloor tenant, A&C Kitchen, the longtime quick-serve and affordable Chinese restaurant, remains closed. 

Sierra Zamarripa, who owns Lovewild Design next door, recently started a crowdfunding campaign to help Mr. Li, who has run A&C Kitchen for 30-plus years, with lost income over the past two months as well as other additional reopening expenses. 

You can find the link here.

An appeal to help a longtime East Village resident

Photos by Daniel Efram 

Updated 2/9

Dan posted an update to the GoFundMe... thanking everyone for their generous support. Also:

WE NEED: General builders / handy people / painters / wall scrapers / flooring specialists for possible emergency work in the apartment possibly this weekend or next week. 

See the comments below or the campaign for more info.

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EVG regular Daniel Efram is helping a neighbor, Ginette Schenck, an 87-year-old resident who has lived in a studio on 12th Street and Avenue A for decades, improve her current living conditions. 

Per his crowdfunding appeal: 

Ginette's health and apartment have seen better days. Funds raised will go toward a deep cleaning (of the apartment), apartment replacement items, new clothing, bedding, towels, etc... which will allow her to heal in a clean and less germ-friendly environment.

And... 

Her health has taken a huge dip in the last couple of months, certainly in no small part due to her horrendous living quarters. It needs a DEEP clean asap, and she will need new everything (clothing, bedding, paint. etc.) to survive. She has been bedridden for months and needs daily help. Her numerous ailments, including painful shingles, neuropathy made worse undoubtedly by her filthy, vermin-ridden studio apartment. 

Though we have been able to get her some aid through the city, she needs much more and any progress seems destined to be stymied by bad fortune and a lack of family nearby to help her make decisions ...

The way she has been left to die on her own, trying to navigate a health care system designed to punish those without extreme financial affluence, family or regular guidance, is a tragedy. 

Find the GoFundMe here.

Help for Chino Garcia

Photo of Chino Garcia for EVG from September 2021 by Stacie Joy 

Friends have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help longtime neighborhood activist Carlos "Chino" Garcia. 

Here's more via the GoFundMe: 

Everyone in Loisaida the Lower East Side knows Chino Garcia. He has been an activist and community volunteer since he was a teenager. He has helped individuals, community groups and served on numerous boards and commissions. 

Now Chino needs help from the community. Over the past year, he has had numerous medical issues. We are looking for a decent, affordable senior-assisted living facility in the community that he loves. 

We would appreciate your assistance in helping Chino secure that housing. Also, the funds to keep him comfortable and happy. The way he has helped our community for so many years 

You can find the campaign link here, which includes some video interviews with Garcia. 

This article at Village Preservation has a lot more about Garcia, who moved to the neighborhood in 1959.

[Updated] Lord Kitty fell from a window and needs surgery

Updated: Sadly, the fall was too intense and Lord was unable to breathe on her own. She was put to sleep. Per Lindsay: "So thank you all for your kindness, for your help, for raising awareness I cannot tell you how much it meant to me, to us ..."

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East Village resident Lindsay Flora came home last evening to discover that Lord, her nearly 9-year-old cat, whom she rescued as a kitten, fell from a fourth-floor window.

Lord survived the fall, “but we had to take her to the emergency vet immediately. Due to the extremity of the fall and the need for the x-rays, overnight stays, medicine, and her having a broken hip, plus some internal organ issues, it’s a lot, and we have her staying overnight a few nights to stabilize.” 

Lindsay launched a GoFundMe to help her pay for Lord’s medical expenses. 

“I’m not sure I can put into words how much she means to me, but she is my best friend, my baby, the absolute love of my life,” she wrote. 

Find the link here.

East Village treasure Katinka crowdfunding to remain in business and support its work in India

Katinka, one of the most unique shops in the East Village, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help the boutique pay its back rent during the lockdown ... and continue to support the Lasksh Foundation, an NGO in Mangar Village, Haryana, India, that co-owner Jane Williams works with.

Williams, and her longtime partner Billy Lyles, opened their closet-sized shop in 1979 at 303 E. Ninth St. just east of Second Avenue... offering hand-made pieces — including shirts, vests, quilts and rugs — all made and imported from India. 

Here's part of the GoFundMe appeal from Williams: 

For the last 14 years, I have been working on a self-empowerment project teaching and producing products to sell in my store, and in craft markets in India. I travel to India twice a year, paying my own plane fare and volunteering my design services and supplies to educate about 40 to 50 women in the village of Mangar, New Delhi, India. 

The profits from this project also help educate about 1,000 Indian children in our tutoring centers in the area. 

Since the COVID crisis we have been hard hit, as many others. I spent five months working there on lockdown in 2020. 

We need funds to keep our store and project going. 

You can find the campaign here. 

And you can watch this 2021 video about the shop and the couple by photographer-filmmaker Josh Charow ...

   

Image via @katinka_ny

Help for an East Village teacher who lost everything in an apartment fire

Jean Finnerty, a teacher and co-founder of the Children's Workshop School on 12th Street, lost everything when her apartment caught fire on Tuesday. 

Maria Velez-Clarke, principal at CWS, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help Finnerty replace her personal items and find long-term housing. 

Per Velez-Clarke: 

Over the years, Jean has served as a leader in our school and has taught nearly all grades at the school, and this year is serving as our health and wellness physical education teacher. She has mentored and supported thousands of children over the years and works to nurture the next generation of public school teachers as the student-teacher coordinator at CWS. 

You can find the GoFundMe here.

H/T Salim

East Village crowdfunding update

We've added about 15-plus East Village businesses to our list of crowdfunding campaigns. (First posted on April 13: Find the link here.)

One addition arrived this week for Mary O's, the Irish pub on Avenue A between Second Street and Third Street.

Here's part of the campaign, via the Friends of Mary O's Committee to Keep Local Hospitality Alive:

Along with every other bar and restaurant in NYC, Mary O's has been economically devastated by COVID-19. While owner Mary O'Halloran's customers are missing her authentic, heartfelt "local hospitality" and she cannot for the time being host the birthday and anniversary parties and myriad school functions for which she's famous, Mary continues to do so much for the community — sewing masks, making meals for first responders, the list goes on.

It goes without saying that the financial hit has been brutal, and (astronomical) rent still needs to be paid. Mary would never serve us again if she knew we were doing this, but we'd like to ask you to consider contributing to the Mary O's fund, so that when this is all over — who knows when? — there will be a Mary O's to return to. To have Mary build us a Guinness, celebrate our kid's graduation, gratefully tuck into a shepherd's pie or make a milestone birthday a night of festive fun. And maybe — finally! — win a round of Drag Queen Bingo.

A list of East Village crowdfunding campaigns

In recent weeks, many East Village merchants — or their patrons — have established GoFundMe pages to help them stay in business or compensate employees during the COVID-19 crisis.

What follows is an alphabetical list of the crowdfunding campaigns that we've received. Let us know in either the comments or via email of other East Village businesses who are crowdsourcing right now...

• Ace Bar

• Amor Y Amargo; Honeybee's and Mother of Pearl

• Anyway Cafe

• Avant Garden

• B&H Dairy Cafe

• Barcade St. Mark's

• Beauty Bar

• Bibi Wine Bar

• Big Bar

• Bite

• Black & White

• Boilermaker

• Bowery Ballroom/Mercury Lounge

• Brindle Room

• Butter Lane Cupcakes

• C&B Cafe

• Cafe Mogador

• Cooper Still

• dba

• Dlala Salon

• Death & Co.

• Double Down Saloon

• Dream Baby Dream

• Factory Tamal

• Gem Spa

• Gnocco

• Gray Mare

• Holiday Cocktail Lounge

• The Izakaya NYC

• Jane's Exchange

• Jeepney

• Josie’s, Mona's and Sophie’s

• KGB Bar

• Kafana

• Khiladi (The Indian restaurant on 11th and B is collecting money to deliver meals to hospital workers.)

• La Sirena Mexican folk art

• Lavagna

• The Library

• Limited to One Records (via Patreon)

• Lucien

• Lucky

• Maiden Lane

• Mary O's

• Mimi Cheng's (specifically for their Dumpling for Doctors plan)

• Mochii

• Niagara, Lovers Of Today, Tompkins Square bar, Cabin Down Below

• Nomad

• Nowhere Bar

• Nublu

• Otto's Shrunken Head

• Pangea

• Paradise Hospitality (the parent company of East Village bars Boulton & Watt, Drexler's, Mister Paradise, Paper Daisy)

• Parkside Lounge

• The Phoenix

• Pink Olive

• Pinks

• Planet Rose

• Porsena

• Raclette

• The Roost

• 787 Coffee

• The Roost

• Sake Bar Satsko

• Scratcher

• Shampoo

• Sing Sing Avenue A

• SOMA Cakes (for hospital workers)

• Spiegel

• Standings

• Superiority Burger

• Swift Hibernian Lounge

• 2A/Treehouse ... as well as Berlin Under A

• Takahachi

• Think Coffee

• Third Rail Coffee

• Three Jewels

• TIC Restaurant Group (includes Sobaya, Rai Rai Ken, Hi-Collar, Sakagura, Decibel, Curry-Ya, Otafuku, Shabu Tatsu, Hasaki, and Cha An)

• Tile Bar (along with Magician)

• Tompkins Square Bagels (All donations to this fund will be used to support the hospitals, first responders and homeless shelters in New York.)

• Tuome

• Turntable Lab

• Village Square Pizza

• The Wayland (plus Goodnight Sonny, The Wild Son and Lost Lady)