CHALK (Choosing Healthy & Active Lifestyles for Kids), a collaboration between Community Pediatrics at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and our community, is a five year Center for Best Practices grant funded by the New York State Department of Health starting in 2008. The goals of CHALK are to reduce over time the prevalence of childhood obesity and its related morbidity in Northern Manhattan (with a focus on school-aged children), and to promote a culture and create an environment in which healthy lifestyles are integral to the lives of all children. CHALK works with a community coalition of partners, initially focusing on Washington Heights/ Inwood to develop and disseminate a social marketing message that promotes healthy lifestyles, while identifying barriers and resources to healthy living. CHALK also works internally within the hospital to engage and train health care providers to identify best practices and to foster an environment of healthy living.

Seven Stories Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2004 as a response to the realization that many good books posing alternatives to current governmental policies and attitudes circulate largely within academic circles but never reach those most adversely affected by those policies. SSI brings seminal books such as the works of Howard Zinn and the Spanish-language edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves to communities that do not otherwise have access to them through such programs as author forums, collaborations with local media, and distribution of books at deeply subsidized prices, to stimulate discussion of important policy issues within those communities who have the most to lose in the current political and economic crises but have the least access to the terms of the debate. SSI seeks ultimately to promote literacy and the active exchange of ideas, imagination and the written word.

The Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights (NMCIR), is a non-profit organization, founded in 1982 to educate, defend and protect the rights of immigrants. Recognized by the Board of Immigration Appeals, NMCIR is committed to expanding access to legal immigration services, participating in policy making and community organizing. Most of the individuals who walk through the doors of the Coalition are low-income, non-citizen immigrants from the Caribbean, Latin America, and increasingly, Africa and the Middle East. Some have lived in the U.S. for decades, others are recent immigrants. The Coalition is often their first entrée into accessing legal aid or basic social services. The Coalition Educates, Organizes and Defends the immigrant community with the following issues: Family Reunification, Citizenship, Family Based Petitions, Deportation, and Civic/ESL, while providing Direct Services to walk-in participants from Monday - Friday.

People’s Theatre Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, community-based organization which uses theatre to raise the awareness of urgent issues impacting Washington Heights and Inwood and advocates for social justice by empowering local residents of all ages to become artists and activists in their own lives and their community.