Behind the bustle of commerce in Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown is an immigrant community with residents less likely to have completed high school and more likely to be in poverty than the average New Yorker. Chinatown residents have also been chronically underserved by affordable cultural and educational opportunities.

Since 2012, the Uni Project has responded by offering free educational programming in prominent Chinatown public spaces. Our goal is to provide residents with free opportunities for learning—right where they gather— and also help the people of Chinatown send a message to passersby that education is something deeply valued in the community. Over the years, we have partnered with community groups, NYC Parks, and NYC DOT, to create open-air reading rooms, art studios, and science exhibits more than sixty times in Chinatown.

Please help us keep this tradition alive. With your help, here’s what we want to offer starting in Fall 2018:

  • bring back our popular, open-air reading room at Sara D. Roosevelt Park for a residency through Nov. 1,
  • pop-up at Chinatown street festivals and Doyers Street Plaza in partnership with NYC DOT, Chinatown Partnership and local groups,
  • retain experienced staff like our program coordinator Joeyee Yan, and engage volunteers to serve the community at these installations,
  • introduce Chinatown residents to some of our best new programs for public space: an open-air art studio with artists-in-residence (DRAW NYC), a pop-up science exhibit that features urban birds (EXPLORE NYC), and a building station that lets people use LEGO together and learn about design, engineering, and construction (BUILD NYC).

Please donate generously to make this possible, and visit Chinatown to enjoy these programs alongside your fellow New Yorkers. Thanks for your support.

Help keep the Uni Project serving Chinatown!

 
To become a sponsor of our work in Chinatown, contact Leslie Davol.

Read about our work in Chinatown since 2012:

(Past supporters include Ong Family Foundation and Asian Women Giving Circle.) 

Homework Hub in Chinatown, supporting NYC Students

Homework Hub in Chinatown, supporting NYC Students

As part of our COVID response in 2020, we launched pop-up, open-air meeting places for NYC students called Homework Hubs. Thanks to support from the Paul and Phoebe Bock Activism Fund and individuals who made donations in Paul and Phoebe Bock's memory, we were able to...

EXPLORE in NYC Chinatown supported by Blackstone volunteers

EXPLORE in NYC Chinatown supported by Blackstone volunteers

Residents and visitors to Chinatown had an opportunity to explore urban nature in Sara D. Roosevelt Park in Chinatown, thanks to the Blackstone Charitable Foundation and Blackstone employees who volunteered and work one-on-one with children. Blackstone has generously...