Reporting by Leah
Henry Buhl, Founder of The Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (ACE), hosted “ACE Brings Brazil to Southampton” on Saturday, August 21, 2010. The event was held at Henry’s beautiful Southampton home, “Girasole,” in Southampton, New York, and featured international Brazilian singing sensation, Bebel Gilberto, as well as DJ Samantha Ronson.
For more information on this event and ACE please visit www.acenewyork.org/events/bringing-brazil-to-the-hamptons.
About ACE and Why You Should Support It:
On a summer morning in 1992, Henry Buhl was leaving his loft on Greene Street in SoHo, when a local homeless man asked him for $20. He figured: if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. So Henry offered the man a job sweeping the sidewalk in front of his building, then rallied the stores on his block to do the same.
Within a few months, word had spread. Recovering homeless men and women were eager to accept work cleaning the streets of SoHo to rebuild their lives. Henry began to accept referrals from homeless outreach organizations and the SoHo Partnership was born, followed by the TriBeCa and NoHo/Bowery Partnerships. In 1997, the Association of Community Employment Programs was created as an umbrella organization to unify the local initiatives. The support of the communities ACE serves allows its clients to find great pride in their work.
Because ACE is 99% privately funded, much of its support comes from local businesses and residential partners in the areas serviced by its sweeping crews.
Participating neighbors become members by making an annual tax-deductible contribution. In return for their generosity, ACE’s clients sweep the streets and sidewalks twice daily, removing approximately 15,000 pounds of trash. A variety of other community services are available to member businesses and buildings at significantly discounted rates, such as window washing, snow and ice removal, and tree care.
ACE was founded in SoHo. For 18 years, ACE has kept that historic neighborhood clean and has done its best to give back to a community that has supplied the backbone of financial support for its organization. ACE has since expanded its sweeping areas to include initiatives in TriBeCa, Nolita, NoHo/Bowery, and the West Village.
The neighborhoods ACE sweeps are among the cleanest in the city (as ranked by the New York City Department of Sanitation) and this on-the-job training provides its clients with valuable work experience.
Today ACE serves individuals from over 40 shelters and treatment programs from all five boroughs. ACE has consolidated the neighborhood partnerships under the name ACE, and is currently sweep in SoHo, TriBeCa, NoHo/Bowery, Nolita, Bedford/Downing and the West Village.
