Executive Summary

A settlement house in the northwest Bronx, Riverdale Neighborhood House (RNH) provides educational, recreational, and social services to the community. Throughout its 150-year history, RNH has been a neighborhood incubator, helping start organizations locally to address mental health, civic engagement, education, and older adults’ needs. Building local assets with equity in mind is core to RNH’s mission. Of, by, and for the community of 50,000 people living and working in the northwest Bronx, RNH directly engages over 5,000 neighbors annually. RNH’s 100+ person staff (72% BIPOC), most who live in the neighborhood, reflects the demographics, needs, and experiences of the community. Today, RNH offers no-cost pre-school education and free and low-cost after-school programs for children aged 2-13. Activities for high school students include internships, college advising, leadership development, and recreation. Adults participate in enrichment classes, community events, and volunteer programs. The volunteer-run Telephone Reassurance Program supports homebound older adults. To address food insecurity (1 in 5 local households), RNH manages a mutual-aid fridge, an urban farm, and farmstand. Through its intergenerational programming, RNH’s goal is to strengthen community bonds to benefit everyone living in the northwest Bronx and to tackle historic access and resource inequities. RNH's work is rooted in data; the U.S. Surgeon General has published extensive data showing that individuals living in communities with stronger bonds have better health, education, and income outcomes. Those communities also have lower crime, more civic engagement, stronger community resilience, and higher economic prosperity.

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