Brookhaven Town’s women’s services program to expand east with $25,000 grant from Riverhead

A Brookhaven Town program that provides career development support and professional attire to women on Long Island is seeking to expand eastward with the help of a $25,000 grant from Riverhead Town.

Dress For Success Brookhaven, an affiliate of the international Dress For Success program sponsored by the Town of Brookhaven Department of Housing and Human Services, is one of six nonprofits slated to receive funds from Riverhead’s piece of federal coronavirus relief funds. The Riverhead Town Board is scheduled to vote to award a total of $150,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds to the six organizations at tonight’s meeting. Each will receive $25,000.

The program supports low income, unemployed and underemployed women referred by other local nonprofit organizations, including domestic violence agencies, veterans organizations, homeless shelters and job training programs, according to the organization’s website.

Sharon Boyd, the program’s director, said the organization has served over 6,500 women on Long Island and has experienced “exponential growth” in the past five years. The Brookhaven organization was founded in 1999 as the first-ever Dress For Success affiliate.

Currently, the organization is operated out of Brookhaven Town Hall in Farmingville. Riverhead Town’s funding would go towards establishing a satellite office on the East End to better serve eastern Suffolk residents, Boyd said. The organization is currently exploring options for the office in Riverhead, Boyd said.

“If you live on Long Island, you know how hard it is to get from point A to point B,” Boyd said. “And now with gas prices, and just really the lack of money our women have if they’re low income — and half of our women are single moms — so it’s a struggle, really. There’s a lot of barriers that they have to get into Town Hall at Farmingville. So I think it’s a great idea. We’ve been wanting to expand and we’re really looking forward to it.”

Dress For Success Brookhaven provides professional attire to women looking for jobs, job and career training and support from other women through meetings. The organization also offers a six-week Career Edge class that develops participants’ resume writing, networking, job searching and interview skills. All of the programs the organization offers are free.

The organization had revenues of $158,808 in 2019, the most recent tax return available on the Internal Revenue Service website. According to that document, its revenues — from gifts, grants and contributions — covered expenses of operations and fundraising that totaled $73,751. The organization reported no payroll expenses. Boyd, who is listed in the return as the organization’s president, is paid by the Town of Brookhaven, where she is an employee in the General Services Department. The other officer listed was Diana Weir, treasurer and secretary, who also served without compensation from the nonprofit.

“We’re really excited to partner with Riverhead Town and expand our services to greater meet the needs of women on the East End and their families,” Boyd said. “This is really going to make a difference that we’re there” in Riverhead, Boyd added.

Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar has been “very moved and inspired by the work our organization has done,” Brookhaven Town spokesperson Jack Krieger said yesterday. “In recent talks we’ve established the need for more space for everything we service through Dress for Success. Supervisor Aquiar has been kind enough to look into what options she may have available to help our organization secure space and help facilitate presence further east,” Krieger said.

Aguiar said in an interview yesterday she is in full support of the organization bringing an office to Riverhead. She said the organization reached out to the town and is also seeking to provide services to women at local schools and churches using a mobile unit.

“I believe that there’s a need here, and this is to help women in Riverhead to succeed and I fully support their effort,” Aguiar said.

Dress for Success Brookhaven applied for $50,000, but will only receive $25,000 if the board approves the resolution up for vote tonight, according to the application filed by Boyd.

Dress for Success Brookhaven is the only organization not based in Riverhead Town that will receive a piece of the $150,000 funding slated for approval. The other five organizations are East End Disability Associates, East End Child Advocacy Center, Warrior Ranch Foundation, Hallockville Museum Farm and East End Arts Council.

Dress For Success Brookhaven is listed in the resolution as Dress For Success Riverhead, an entity that does not exist, according to state records. Aguiar said she will speak with the town attorney’s office about the discrepancy.

Riverhead Town received $3.67 million in American Rescue Plan funding, authorized by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, 2021. The act included $360 billion of direct relief for state and local governments, distributed over two years.

A committee comprising Community Development Director Dawn Thomas, Deputy Town Attorney Annemarie Prudenti and Financial Administrator William Rothaar drafted a plan for the allocation of the funding, which they presented to the Town Board in September 2021: $2 million for the construction of a water storage facility in Wading River, $750,000 to replace lost government revenue during the pandemic, and $230,000 on parks and recreation improvements. The committee recommended allocating $150,000 to support businesses and nonprofits “related to arts, entertainment, leisure and hospitality” that suffered a negative economic impact from COVID-19, and $100,000 for economically impacted programs that serve disabled people. The town board later allocated $200,000 for the purchase and installation of security cameras in the downtown area and $200,000 to repair the roof on the town senior center.