Bed-Stuy's Brooklyn Movement Center Wins $100K Prize

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Bed-Stuy's own Brooklyn Movement Center got a $100,000 boost this week for its work advancing racial justice in the borough.

The Stuyvesant Avenue organization was one of five nonprofits chosen for this year's Spark Prize, an annual award by the Brooklyn Community Foundation that celebrates racial and social justice advancements, the foundation announced.

“These nonprofits are among the best that Brooklyn has to offer and we are so grateful for all that they’ve done, and what more they will achieve!" Foundation President Dr. Jocelynne Rainey said Thursday.

The Foundation pointed to Brooklyn Movement Center's decade of organizing in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights' Black communities on a range of issues including police accountability and community safety, food sovereignty, environmental justice, anti-gentrification media production, electoral justice and tenant organizing.

Each winner of the Spark Prize will get $100,000 in a "no strings attached" grant at an event hosted by the foundation in March at the Brooklyn Museum, according to the organization.

The 2022 awards are the seventh year the Brooklyn Community Foundation has handed out the prizes, which will also include 20 $5,000 matches for Spark Prize finalists as part of their Giving Tuesday campaign.

Here's a look at all the winners:

• Arab American Association of New York
• Black Women's Blueprint
• Brooklyn Movement Center
• Groundswell Community Mural Project
• Weeksville Heritage Center