Brooklyn Congregations United (BCU)

Kolot Chayeinu joined BCU when it was Community Action Project, a group that merged with Southwest Brooklyn Congregations to form BCU.

BCU is a space where Kolot members work together with a diverse set of congregations of different faiths and ethnic heritage to share in a collective voice at the city and national levels around the issues that unite us.

Brooklyn Congregations United (BCU) develops low to moderate-income community leaders to build powerful organizing efforts capable of involving large numbers of people in the identification, research and resolution of issues that concern them.  Through this work they hope to capture the imagination of our communities and transform them into healthy renewed communities where people come together to struggle for a common good. BCU is part of the national PICO network, People Improving Communities through Organizing.

Founded in 2007, BCU is a multi-ethnic, congregation-based community organization. We are a coalition of over 20 member congregations with a total of 10,000 congregants in the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Park Slope, Flatbush, East Flatbush, Bay Ridge and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Our Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Jewish, and Muslim congregations work to improve daily life. BCU provides community organizing support and training to committees within each congregation to work on local issues that are of concern to them in the local community.

Key Issues We Are Working On

• Responsible Banking Act: Communities in New York City are suffering economically as local banks fail to meet the credit needs of our neighborhoods. This legislation will make banks more locally accountable and is one step within a broader campaign for economic equality.  (This is photo is of BCU leaders -- including Kolot members Betsy Biele and Emma Missouri---after the RBA was passed!!)

• Bringing Health Care Reform Home: After joining a nationwide faith-based campaign urging Congress to pass comprehensive health reform legislation, BCU members have begun working with local providers to create primary care facilities that incorporate a community voice, improve access and reduce financial burdens on emergency rooms and the health care system as a whole. BCU members are also actively responding to the budget cuts and threats to Medicaid and Medicare.
• The New Bottom Line 

For more information, please get in touch with Dahlia Goldenberg, Kolot member and staff organizer at BCU.