Nice, New Harlem Post-Rikers Re-Entry Education Center Opens (Photographs)

GOSO staff members and clients were joined by community leaders, partner organizations, and education stakeholders for the grand opening of the GOSO Education Center at 1400 Fifth Avenue, Harlem, New York.

GOSO’s Co-Founder, President and CEO, Mark L. Goldsmith was joined by Dr. Timothy Lisante, Superintendent of DOE’s District 79 and Gloria Ortiz, Founder and former Principal of Horizon Academy, an alternative high school providing educational services to incarcerated adolescents, Stand Against Violence East Harlem (SAVE), partner organizations Bronx Freedom Fund and Legal Aid Society, and employment partner GrowNYC for a celebration of the opening. GOSO clients, staff members and community members toured the new facility, and guests learned about GOSO’s education initiatives, counseling, work-readiness, paid internships, and job placement programs.

GOSO is proud to open this brand-new, 2,200sf center that will serve as a home base for its robust TASC (GED) high school equivalency and vocational education programs. The new education center will double the training and education capacity of GOSO’s East Harlem headquarters, and includes a fully-equipped classroom for high school equivalency classes, a tutoring room, and a separate vocational education space where GOSO will provide OSHA training, scaffolding and flagging skills trainings for construction, computer skills training, food service training and more. The new center will also serve as a home for GOSO’s Coach’s Club, which partners participants with mentors who share their career interest in order to give them the skills and insights to navigate school and the workplace.

Photo credit: 1) SAVE team members. 2) Mark Goldsmith and Carlos Polanco. 3) Dr. Timothy Lisante, Gloria Ortiz, and Mark Goldsmith. 4) Mark Goldsmith, Dr. Timothy Lisante, PHD, DOE staff, Cana Osborne, and former GOSO clients. Captions for photos are as follows (Courtesy of GOSO).