SUNY Downstate Medical Center at Long Island College Hospital (“LICH”) has applied to LIVESTRONG, a partner of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, for funds to bring an artist-in-residence program to its Othmer Cancer Center in order to improve the lives of cancer patients. LICH is a finalist in the competition for funds, and the institution that gets the most on-line votes will win the grant. You can cast your vote here. The deadline for voting is this Thursday, March 23, at 5:00 p.m., so if you wish to vote, please do it promptly.

This Saturday, February 4, Grace Church, 254 Hicks Street (corner of Hicks and Grace Court) will hold its annual Winterfair. From 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., you may shop for children’s clothes and toys, men’s and women’s clothing, books and CDs, sporting equipment, plants and flowers, furniture, housewares and tchatchkes. From 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., the cafe will serve delicious hot luncheon entrees. Starting at 6:30 p.m., there will be a gala cocktail reception and silent auction; the theme of this year’s gala is “Russian Rhapsody.” (Disclosure: your correspondent’s wife is in charge of the auction.) Among the prizes available at auction will be goods and gift certificates from local merchants and restaurants, tickets to cultural and sporting events, antiques and art works. Admission to the Fair is free; tickets for the gala are $25 if purchased in advance from the parish office (718-624-1850), and will be available at the Fair for $30.

If you have items you would like to donate for sale at the Fair, please take them to the Church during the day today through Thursday. Books, CDs, children’s toys and clothing should be left on the stage in the downstairs gym; fleas, clothing, sports equipment, and the like should be put in the back side pews on the left of the Church. If you have items for the silent auction, please contact Martha Foley at 718-624-4306 or foley.martha@gmail.com

There will be a community knittiing bee this coming Saturday, December 10, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, Clinton and Montague streets. This from Carol Francescani of St. Ann:

Calling all knitters and would-be knitters! Support Christmas at Sea, a program of the Seamen’s Church Institute that distributes handmade comfort to mariners who spend months at sea by knitting warm items, such as hats and scarves. If you are interested, please email the church at SAHT157@gmail.com or call us at 718-875-6960. Yarns and needles will be available at the Bee—or bring your own. Refreshments will be provided.

How often do you have the opportunity to get your craft on, chat with your neighbors and support a worthy cause all at once? Come on down to the St. Ann’s Knitting Bee. You’ll be glad you did!

This is out of the nabe, but it’s such a worthy cause we have to support it. CHIPS is a Park Slope based charity that provides a soup kitchen for needy people and shelter for homeless prenatal women and women with children. Their building recently suffered extensive damage, and some guests were injured, when a neighboring building burned. To help CHIPS restore and move back into its quarters, Brooklyn Potters and Ozzie’s are sponsoring an event, “Empty Bowls for CHIPS in Brooklyn,” part of the worldwide Empty Bowls anti-hunger project. It will happen this Saturday, November 12, from 2:00 to 8:00 p.m., at All Saints Episcopal Church, enter at 463 A Seventh Street, near Seventh Avenue, in Park Slope. There will be music, poetry, and storytelling, and the opportunity to buy one of the bowls made by the Brooklyn Potters for the event. Bowls will sell for $25 each, and all proceeds will go to CHIPS. For more information, call 718-636-8608.

On Saturday morning, Jonathan Landsman and his crew were busy planting by the Clark Street entrance to the Promenade. More photos and text after the jump.

Because of an intervening commitment, by the time I got to the Poplar Street Community Garden the folks were packing up their gardening equipment after a hard afternoon’s productive work. But some workers were still busy there: I’ve included this photo in honor of BHB reader Lois, whose husband was a beekeeper.

Early in the morning I’d heard a rumor that #Occupy Wall Street was relocating to Cadman Plaza. That didn’t seem to make much sense, but when I got there I saw a large crowd assembled around some tents on the Cadman Plaza East side. As I approached, I noticed that lots of the people were wearing pink. It proved to be a rest stop on the Avon Walk to End Breast Cancer.

Sometimes, tragedy strikes in ways that seem unimaginable, as in the instance of a young couple, parents of a 20 month old daughter, both diagnosed with potentially fatal cancers within days of each other.

The Brooklyn Paper: The Heights Players will hold a performance of the company’s current — and very well-reviewed — show, plus raise money through a silent auction for Elisa Bond, who performed in multiple shows for the company, and her husband Nathan — both of whom got the cancer prognosis [sic] in February.

The Bonds and their daughter Sadie live in Bay Ridge. Elisa Bond began performing with the Heights Players at the age of seven. The benefit performance will take place at the Heights Players’ performance space in the A.T. White community Center, 26 Willow Place, on Thursday, May 26 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at the Heights Players’ website. If you can’t attend, but want to make a donation for Elisa and Nathan, you can do so at this website (thanks to Brooklyn Paper for the link).

Photo from Heights Players’ website.

Grace Church Brooklyn Heights has a long standing commitment to assist in the support of El Hogar de Amor y Esperanza (“The Home of Love and Hope”), which provides a home and school for homeless, destitute children in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. This Sunday, May 15, Grace is holding a fund-raising walk-a-thon for El Hogar. The walk begins at Grace, 254 Hicks Street (between Grace Court and Joralemon) at 12:00 noon, will go for about one mile, and return to Grace, where a light lunch will be served. If you would like to participate, or to donate in support, details are here.

One World Symphony, which has performed at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity, will present a benefit concert for relief of earthquake, tsunami and radiation stricken Japan on Sunday, April 3, starting at 8:00 p.m., at Holy Apostles Church, 296 Ninth Avenue at West 28th Street, Manhattan. Under the direction of artistic director and conductor Sung Jin Hong, the orchestra will perform the finale of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, What Love Tells Me; a portion of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time; John Lennon’s Imagine; and Sung Jin Hong’s own Eye of the Storm. Tickets are $10, and may only be purchased at the door. All proceeds will go to the American Red Cross Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami Relief Fund.

State and City budgets for education have been slashed across the board, which means less money for our local elementary school, P.S. 8, the Robert Fulton School. Whether you have a child in P.S. 8, or one who may go there, or not, this school is a tremendously valuable asset to Brooklyn Heights as a whole. You can read the PTA’s appeal and, if you wish, follow the link to donate, after the jump.

As you are probably already aware from recent news coverage, the Governor and Mayor have recently announced more extreme budget cuts that will threaten our extraordinarily talented teaching staff and the educational experience they have created in our wonderful school. We began this year with a substantially smaller budget than last year, and while so far we have weathered this historic economic downturn and the severe budget cuts it has brought, this next round threatens to directly impact our children’s daily experience through staff and enrichment reductions. We all want our children’s valuable experience at PS 8 to continue unchanged regardless of the political and economic climate. We therefore must ask that you donate as much as you can during these difficult times. So far the shortfall is $1,000 per child, and with new cuts the number will continue to rise.

In order to keep our teaching staff at current levels, Principal Phillips needs the PTA to fund enrichment programs, staff development, school supplies, capital improvements, and teachers’ aides. And we need to have the money in place to prevent lapses in our excellent programming. But because of the across the board budget cuts this year we are falling far short in our ability to provide the funding needed to maintain continuity.

We know not everyone in our community has this much to contribute. Please give what you can and if you can do more to help us reach our goal, please do. Your full support is critical to keep PS 8 strong. While the PTA employs many forms of fund raising, the key to our success is the active monetary contributions of parents, grandparents and the community. If you would like more information, please contact Lisa at lisakopel@gmail.com or Wendy at winifreud@aol.com.

If you wish to donate, you may do so by going here.

This in from Heights & Hills Community Council, and the Brooklyn Heights Association:

Heights and Hills’ annual Thanksgiving Dinner will be held at Grace Church on Thanksgiving Day, serving older adults in our community. Heights and Hills also delivers meals to about 75 neighborhood seniors who are too frail to get out and join the festivities.

The dinner is open to senior citizens regardless of economic status. It is a community effort that is co-sponsored by Heights and Hills, Grace Church and Cobble Hill Health Center with assistance from the 84th Precinct and the Brooklyn Heights community.

Volunteers are needed to bake and bring pies to the Church (on or before Thanksgiving morning), and to help with delivering meals to the homebound, seating and serving the elderly, cleaning up, and socializing with the guests.

If you can donate your time between 10:30 AM and 2 PM, please call (718) 596-8789 to sign up, or for further information.

In the words of Grace’s Rector, Steve Muncie: “You have no idea how much pie they can eat.” So, if you can bake a pie or two, good karma to you. If you can come and help serve, so much the better.

It’s that time of year again– New York children everywhere will soon be back to school. But did you know that there are 15,000 homeless boys and girls in New York who don’t have the school supplies they need to succeed? The Coalition for the Homeless started a project three years ago to help those kids in need– “Project: Back to School.”

From August 23rd through September 17th, you can donate school supplies to the organization in designated spots all over the city, including right here in Brooklyn Heights. The two nearby drop-off locations are:

Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz, 209 Joralemon Street

Brooklyn Public Library, 280 Cadman Plaza West

The Back to School Wishlist includes items like backpacks, pencils, binders, and composition books. Can’t make it to a drop-off location but still want to help? Visit the donation site to make a cash donation starting at just $5 that goes towards supplies.

“The goal is to get an many school supplies as we can,” Coalition for the Homeless Policy Analyst Giselle Routhier said. “There are 15,000 New York City kids in shelters every night. They face a lot of obstacles that make school more difficult– they may have to travel or miss school more often. We’re doing what we can to try to make it a little easier.”

To learn about how you can get involved, call 212-776-2112 or email backtoschool@cfthomeless.org.

This week is the last chance to donate to PS 8′s new fundraising campaign challenge, where your donation could either be doubled or tripled. A parent has agreed to make a $20,000 contribution, with one catch: the amount must first be matched by other donors.

Most contributions will be matched 2-to-1, but for first time PS 8 parents who are donating, the rate will be 3-to-1. A secretary at the school said that she couldn’t reveal how much had been raised so far. If you’re looking to make a donation, you can do so at the school’s website.

This Friday, March 19, beginning at 7:00 p.m., Grace Church will present a concert for Haiti relief. It will be

…[a]n eclectic evening of music to include Broadway tunes, Opera, Traditional African Songs with percussion, as well as a Haitian Classic – arranged by a Haitian composer who will also be there performing.

Grace Church is located at 254 Hicks Street (corner of Grace Court, between Joralemon and Remsen). Admission is $15, though you may give more if you wish–all proceeds will go to Haiti relief.

This Sunday, February 28, the Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont Street (corner of Clinton) will host a Brooklyn Poetry Slam for Haiti. The event will begin with a reception starting at 2:30 p.m., followed by performances from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. From BHS:

Join the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Historic House Trust, in partnership with actress Alexandra Foucard, director/actor Byron Saunders, illustrator Javaka Steptoe, solo performer Anthony Thompson, musician Russell Dale and guests, for a special benefit featuring spoken word and musical performances by local artists to help raise money for the people of Haiti. Wine and hors d’oeuvres donated by Footprints Café of Brooklyn will be served. Admission to the benefit: $20. Reservations are required. RSVP to the Brooklyn Historical Society by calling 718.222.4111.

All proceeds from this event will go to Doctors Without Borders to support their work in Haiti.

Appeals for Haiti have been many, but the need is great and continuing. This Saturday afternoon, February 20, Dan Cardona’s Martha Cardona Theater, which provided entertainment during last year’s Montague Street SummerSpace festival, will perform great hits of opera and musical theater at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, Montague and Clinton Streets. Admission is free, but you may donate whatever amount you choose, all of which will go to Haiti relief. The concert begins at 4:00 p.m. Read more about it in Denis Hamill’s Daily News piece.

This Sunday, January 17, from noon to 9 pm, there will be a party to raise funds for Haitian earthquake relief at CastleBraid, 114 Troutman Street (between Central and Evergreen) in Bushwick. According to Leia Doran, Creative Director for CastleBraid:

This Sunday at CastleBraid (114 Troutman st. in Bushwick), we’re presenting “Haiti Matters to Brooklyn”, an emergency fundraiser for the victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The event is a unified effort on the part of Brooklyn’s musicians, artists, organizations, creative minds and caring individuals. …

We’re having a raffle of prizes donated by corporate sponsors and local businesses as well as works donated by local artists, live music all day/night, screenings, dancing, and an open bar courtesy of Brooklyn Brewery. All proceeds go to the American Red Cross’ Haitian relief fund.

There’s a $10 min. suggested donation at the door. You can rsvp on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=284075887246 or, if you don’t have facebook, rsvp here – http://www.castlebraid.com/haiti