Where Rosario Dawson Goes To Find Hope

During the past 27 years the Lower Eastside Girls Club (LESGC) has offered a multitude of free programs for young people of color in New York City. Serving young women and gender-expansive individuals between the ages of 10 and 23, each year hundreds step through their doors.

The programs they offer are so vast and all-compassing. They include coding and robotics, STEM exploration, media and social justice studies, fashion, film and photography, music production, podcasting, culinary education and more. Oh and there’s even a rooftop farm, recording studio and a 64-seat dome planetarium.

For Rosario Dawson who grew up in the Lower East Side before the LESGC existed, this mecca of mentoring, learning and curiosity expanding has had a special place in her heart.

“It didn’t exist when I was a little girl but when I go there and see the programming they have and how they work with the community and how the community supports it blows my mind,” says Dawson who is on their board of directors.

“So much of growing up is about how you escape poverty and these cyclical traps. Getting those resources into the community has been so pivotal,” adds the actress, activist and co-founder of a Ghana-based fashion house, Studio 189.

“The Lower Eastside Girls Club is the bridge that continues to give service to the community which you see in more affluent neighborhoods,” she adds. “And it’s given for free to girls who are in the projects and living in this community who deserve to have access to those things too.”

Dawson loves taking visitors there and seeing how surprised they are with the plethora of offerings. “Before visiting, most people just think rec room,” says Dawson. “But they go in there and they see the planetarium and the Airstream was airlifted onto the second floor that was gutted and turned into a recording studio. They see people designing clothes and videos…doing dance movement, yoga, mindfulness, and meditation. It’s really well-rounded and well-serviced. And the people who work there are so dedicated.”

To that end, the LESGC recently got a technology infusion from Samsung. Dawson has partnered with the brand and they outfitted the entire Lower Eastside Girls Club space with TVs and monitors. In fact, Samsung donated 25 TVs to the LESGC. “The building has been in existence for twelve years and we haven’t retrofitted it since,” says Dawson. “So to update everything took it to a whole other level.”

All this new technology has created new learning opportunities for the girls. And Dawson is particularly drawn to the monitors. “You can do everything from playing video games to doing video calls. It’s showing how one tech piece can do multiple different things,” she says. “These are young people learning how to edit, film themselves and be leaders in front of and behind the camera. I am excited to see what short films or projects we will be watching on the outside television that we now have on the roof. It’s beautiful to witness young girls of different ages exploring this technology and seeing how they can express themselves.”

“Dawson also views the LESGC as a healing place as well as a refuge for herself. “For me it healed a little girl in me who didn’t have access to those things and felt sad,” she says. “Also there were people that I grew up around who were made vulnerable. If only they had a space like this that invited them in and let them know they’re welcome and deserve to be here.”

Whether it’s working with her own fashion line or the LESGC, at the forefront for Dawson is to help support the dreams of others. “We’re here for really short periods of time. And I feel the benefit of the folks who were thoughtful behind me,” she says. “I have my family. And as you get older and you start thinking about the future and what you’re leaving behind.”

What she loves about LESGC and her clothing line is that they both are multifaceted. “Studio 189 is not just a fashion line making clothes,” she says. “We’re making sure it is ethical, sustainable and regenerative. And we layer in all the knowledge that we have up until this point, ancient and new—so it can be even more perfected down the line.”

As Dawson shares she sees great responsibility, just by virtue of being alive. “I’m not here just be a witness. It’s important to participate,” she says. “We’re three dimensional human beings. We can create and we can destroy. And that’s a powerful and important power that we have.”

And as she grows she continues to understand how people make a really big difference. “Your vote matters. How you vote with your dollar, how you vote with your ballot, how you vote with your time, your attention, your energy. All of that stuff matters,” she says.

So now when Dawson looks for hope she knows where to find it. “We so siloed with everything down to our social media and people being so divided,” she says. “When I go to the Lower Eastside Girls club, I see hope for the future. I see how we can come together and problem solve with love and light.”