Broadway Stages Celebrates Earth Day 2018!

Welcome to Earth Day 2018! It has been over 365 days of energy saving, water conservation, and more by you and members of your community! For a quick recap, let's talk about some of the things that have helped make this Earth Day incredible.

This year, the U.S. has increased solar and wind generation projects while also using fewer non-renewable energy sources, such as coal. These projects reduce carbon emissions in the air, decreasing the greenhouse effect and helping to combat global warming. These projects also clear the air of dangerous chemical pollutants that are the byproducts of coal plants.

And most importantly, global citizens are making being green a trend through social media. This year has marked one of the most unified efforts for global citizens to become environmentally conscious. The progressive movement toward a global system of responsible energy use brings us one step closer to making non-renewable energy sources obsolete.

To encourage and continue the Earth Day celebration, Broadway Stages will share some more tips and tricks to help encourage a greener environment.

1. Reduce, reuse, recycle…. and repair!
   Everyone knows the 3R's reduce, reuse, and recycle, but not many people know its cousin repair. Repairing goods instead of replacing them can significantly reduce your footprint and save you money. For example, durable goods will last longer than lower quality items that need to be replaced more often.

2. Start the compost station!
   A large percentage of most trash in U.S. households is denoted to organic compounds and foods that can be composted. It is time to start considering the benefits of composting. Composting relieves your trashcan of most of its weight and size. Key benefits include replacing your trash bags less often and producing fertile soil that helps your garden grow!

3. Keep the paper in the trees!
   With modern technologies, paper could be made obsolete by writing on tablets or other devices. As deforestation continues to destroy whole ecosystems, global citizens need to protect our precious forests and trees. So next time you are thinking of writing down anything, make an effort to leave no paper trail!

YMCA Summer Camp Around the Corner!

Summer is right around the corner! The YMCA offers an amazing summer experience for youths in the New York area. From sports to the arts, the YMCA offers a wide variety of specially designed youth camps to satisfy a range of educational interests.

Open to all families across the five boroughs, the YMCA operates 11 camps with specific designations based on location, age, and activity. Enrichment programs spread throughout the day include group activities and also focus on healthy habits like daily nutrition and staying active. With many activities and friends to be made, YMCA summer camp will provide many positive memories for your children and family.

A proud supporter of the YMCA, Broadway Stages President Gina Argento encourages families to enroll their children into the summer camp program. As a financial contributor to the YMCA, Gina is among the community members who help supplement or secure funding for families qualified for financial support. Her contributions toward supporting local families is part of her efforts to reinvest in local community members, always acknowledging the importance of community cohesion. With that in mind, you can be assured that Gina and fellow community contributors want your family and children to experience an amazing summer with YMCA!

Broadway Stages Encourages You to Support Your Local YMCA

At the core of every New York City Community is a YMCA ready to serve the youth and families of each neighborhood. With the mission to improve the health and body of each individual, especially youths of the next generation, the YMCA dedicates a plethora of programs to provide unlimited opportunities to grow future community leaders. YMCA programs foster the growth of teamwork, critical thinking, and friendship.

Critical to the operation of YMCA community programs is the support received from the community itself. Sharing similar philosophies as the YMCA, Gina Argento, President of Broadway Stages, believes that programs that promote community adhesion will ultimately lead to positive influences. As a financial sponsor to the Greenpoint YMCA, Gina has helped finance the new hardwood floors in the basketball courts, the continued operations of after-school enrichment programs, and summer camps for Greenpoint families. With support from local Brooklynites like Gina and yourself, Greenpoint families can enjoy YMCA programs for free!

Broadway Stages Is Excited to Support the Community-Word Project in 2018

The Community-Word Project (CWP) inspires thousands of young students in numerous communities to explore and develop their creative arts. The CWP focuses on providing New York children with a stimulating arts curriculum to encourage self development while integrating critical discovery of personal art and personal learning.

The sponsored classroom programs collaborate with visual artists, writers, musicians, photographers, and theater performers, making sure that students can participate in a variety of art forms to expand their creative nature. In fact, each student is able to intimately engage in and explore different forms of art thanks to the student-to-teacher 6-1 ratio central to CWP learning styles. The CWP ultimately seeks to build a community for young people to learn and contribute to the New York arts scene.

Gina Argento, President of Broadway Stages, seeks to enrich the artistic education of over 2,500 students across 22 schools. She is excited to have helped support the project, which has positively impacted students for 19 years. Her sponsorship of the annual CWP benefit Writing Our Future helped raise over $160,000 from the New York community. This year's amazing dedication from community members propels CWP to reach even more students and schools. Gina is excited that more students will receive high-quality artistic education lessons this year and hopes you can join her and the CWP community to reach even more students next year.

Broadway Stages Sponsors Toy Drive at Kingsland Avenue

In anticipation of the holidays, Brooklyn's largest full-service sound stage studio is preparing for another year of supporting local children! On December 16, Broadway Stages, in partnership with the 94th Precinct, is organizing a toy drive to collectively donate to Brooklyn families.

Dozens of dedicated Broadway Stages employees collect and distribute over a hundred toys during the annual donation drive. Purchasing dolls, actions figures, cars, and Legos, the staff at Broadway Stages and the officers at the 94th Precinct encourage each other to contribute to the drive to benefit our fellow neighbors.

The toy drive is open to all Brooklynites to participate, and the more the merrier! Whether you want to donate to the cause or come celebrate with your family, Broadway Stages welcomes you from noon to 3 p.m. next Saturday! Be sure to stop by; we would love to celebrate the night with our Greenpoint family!

Broadway Stages and North Brooklyn Boat Club Provide Environmental Education

Row, row, row your boat! That was exactly what 100 fourth-grade students did down the Newtown Creek advised by staff from the North Brooklyn Boat Club (NBBC). The boat ride at Broadway Stages' Boatyard located along Newtown Creek, is part of an educational program designed to teach students about the history of the creek and how to keep it clean for the future.

The local creek was once a high-density highway for transportation between New Jersey and New York and a common destination for dumping waste. It eventually became a Superfund site marked for environmental cleanup. However since then, in part thanks to the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment facility and increasing awareness and government intervention, it has become considerably cleaner and safer. Though the water has significantly improved, there is a continuous need to educate locals and boost communal efforts to prevent it from reverting back to how it was.

As a Brooklyn business, Broadway Stages believes that it is part of our duty to the Brooklyn community to increase awareness about the environmental importance of the iconic creek. Believing it is important for future generations to appreciate and preserve the natural ecology of our shared creek, Broadway Stages wishes to improve the Newtown Creek for all Brooklynites to enjoy and works to achieve that dream by setting up educational programs with NBBC. By working with NBBC, Broadway Stages has invited many Brooklynites, with a focus on students, to come to the Broadway Stages Boatyard to learn about the ecology of the Newtown Creek.

Leading the success of the partnership program between NBBC and Broadway Stages are the fun but educational teaching methods. To allow students to thoroughly enjoy the creek, staffers take them on 12-man boat trips down the creek to experience firsthand the amazing ecology of the creek, in the hopes of inspiring them to preserve its current state and work to improve it even more in the future.

Broadway Stages and NBBC hope to restore the Newtown Creek to its natural beauty completely and can only do it with the help of Brooklynites of the next generation. Let's keep Brooklyn clean and eco-friendly!

Broadway Stages Gets Spooktacular at the Staten Island Zoo

The annual Staten Island halloween event Spooktacular took over the Staten Island Zoo last weekend. The local event is a hotspot for Staten Island families seeking family fun, even attracting families from other boroughs as it grows in popularity each passing year.

Year-round zoo attractions, including "The Africa and Tropical Forest Wings," "The Otter Tunnel," and "The Kid's Korral," were transformed into designated trick and treat zones, performance spaces, and halloween-themed attractions.

The most infamous attractions at Spooktacular never fail to be Halloween Town, Monster Alley, and Candy Land, decorated with lifelike bats, spider webs, and skulls. Not to mention the tremendous number of volunteers who dressed up as ghosts, zombies, and skeletons and helped bring out the Halloween spirit! The two-night event scares over a thousand visitors who walk away with treats, prizes, and crafts.

This year, Broadway Stages was excited to be part of Spooktacular as a sponsor. We would like to thank the incredible combined efforts of fellow sponsors and volunteers in helping creating the best Spooktacular fun for Staten Island families. We look forward to helping make next year's Spooktacular even more spooky and spectacular!

Broadway Stages President Says Never Stop Giving Back

"Never stop giving back." Those are the words that Broadway Stages was built upon when founder Tony Argento opened his first sound stage in the 1980s. Even when he was just starting out in the film and TV industry, Tony always wanted to reinvest his success back into local businesses because he believed in spreading his success to other members of the community. This meant he went to local shops for equipment, local restaurants for food, and hired local residents as workers. Therefore, Broadway Stages' success was always going to directly help fellow community members and businesses.

In the years since, Broadway Stages has always stayed true to our founding principle. Today that tradition is carried on by Tony's sister, CEO Gina Argento. Though the company has grown sizably since, Gina has not forgotten the principle values of community commitment and local reinvestments. From sponsoring annual block parties for families in Brooklyn, cooking delicious meals for community residents, or buying clothes for clothing drives, Broadway Stages' community responsibility has not changed and will only continue to grow stronger.

In addition to the community commitment put in place by Tony, Gina has since added educational commitments. As a significant supporter of programs at the Greenpoint YMCA, Green Science Week at PS 110, and NY Sun Works across the five boroughs, Gina is committed to supporting New York City students across a wide educational spectrum in their pursuit of academia and knowledge. In fact, Gina was even able to help build a school in the Philippines after it was destroyed by a typhoon. Providing students with educational opportunities is a top priority for Gina, who has already sponsored dozens of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) events this year alone.

With that in mind, as we expand into Staten Island, Broadway Stages is excited to get the opportunity to support businesses and student education in Staten Island.

Broadway Stages Sponsors Camp Brooklyn's Community Service Award Gala

All children should have access to recreational activity and enrichment programs at no cost so they can grow socially and emotionally alongside their peers. To help ensure that Brooklyn children and students are able to attend enrichment programs like sleep-away camps, Broadway Stages has supported the Camp Brooklyn Fund and sponsored the fund's Community Service Award.

Working together with the Camp Brooklyn Fund, Broadway Stages has set out on the mission to send Brooklyn students to sleep-away camps at no expense to their families. These camps are designed to transform children's lives by teaching them the importance of their individuality while socializing, growing, and learning with fellow campers. Guided by excellent instructors, campers enjoy group activities to develop teamwork skills while learning about personal and social responsibility to become good citizens. In fact, most campers that attend the sleep-away camp program remain friends even after the camp has ended and continue to uphold good citizenship.

To help continue to fund sleep-away experiences, Broadway Stages supports these life-changing adventures by financially contributing to Camp Brooklyn Fund events and sponsoring outreach interactions.

At this year's Community Service Award Gala, the Brooklyn community came together to recognize supporting members, inspire new found members, and hold an auction to raise funds to support upcoming events for Brooklyn campers. Broadway Stages was happy to provide behind-the-scenes tours of Broadway Stages, a gift certificate, a Coach charm bag, a Chanel pareo, a photo autographed by Stan Lee, Cosmos tickets, a Fitbit, and Hello Dolly Broadway tickets for the auction. With the contributions, Broadway Stages looks forward to seeing more campers at Camp Brooklyn.

Broadway Stages President Gina Argento Supports YMCA Camp Spirit Day

Gina Argento, President of Broadway Stages and board member of YMCA Greenpoint, believes that recreational activity and student enrichment programs are crucial pieces of positive youth development. As a financial contributor to the YMCA and YMCA sponsored events, Gina's active participation directly supports outreach programs and summer camps.

The YMCA Camp Spirit Day brings together young campers at its annual celebration to showcase spectacular musical and dance talent performed at the end of its summer program. This year's spirit summer theme was "Myths & Legends" with participants from student-named groups "Trolls," "Be Our Guests," "The Rhythm," and "Zuka Zama." Each group performance taught campers about the importance of teamwork and helping one another.

YMCA events like these help provide students with artistic enrichment that is essential to creative development. By promoting creative expressions in the form of dance and music, the YMCA allows young campers to enjoy themselves while exploring their artistic talents.

Gina's contributions also help maximize community participation at the YMCA by providing families with free memberships. Focused on improving recreational activity outreach and participation, Gina dedicates her resources to provide every child access to recreational activities that will benefit their mental, social, and physical growth.

Broadway Stages Sponsors Glendale and Brooklyn 94th Precinct National Night Out

This past Tuesday, Broadway Stages sponsored the National Night Out to honor the hardworking and brave men and women of the 94th Precinct protecting Greenpoint every day. The annual community event promotes police and resident camaraderie and helps create safer neighborhoods by bringing together local residents with those who pledge to serve them. The event honoring our local officers was a huge success!

Broadway Stages invited all our neighbors in Greenpoint to enjoy delicious grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and sausages topped with fresh veggies on us! Serving hundreds of families and children that night, Broadway Stages came prepared with dozens of pounds of food to accommodate our hungry guests.

Among the most popular attraction at the event was the water jet game, which involves shooting a water pistol at a target three feet away to elevate your pole to the top. The game attracted children and adults, with winners taking home toys including SpongeBob and emoji plushies.

At the end of the night, we held a showing of all the honorable servicemen and women who strive to keep our communities and families safe. As police officers walked to the stage, they were greeted with rounds of applause by community members thankful for their service. Receiving cheers from the crowd, the 94th Precinct sure felt right at home at the National Night Out.

We hope that the 94th Precinct and our fellow Brooklynites enjoyed the event and look forward to continuing to serve our community, as the 94th Precinct does.

Join Broadway Stages in Supporting the YMCA 5K Run

The Brooklyn Cyclones baseball team sponsors an annual 5K run to raise funding for a select cause or institution that benefits the New York public. This year, the fundraising event will raise money for the YMCA of Greater New York.

Participants can choose any participating YMCA branch to receive their donations. On July 15, runners will start at Surf Avenue and finish at home plate of the Cyclones' MCU Park. In addition, event benefactors will enjoy free food and beverages to refuel post-run and also receive tickets eligible to view up to three Brooklyn Cyclones games.

Broadway Stages President Gina Argento has been an avid financial supporter of YMCA events, with this month's 5K run being no exception. Gina has regularly supported the YMCA at Greenpoint and the YMCA Strong Kids' Campaign, and she is a recent recipient of the YMCA Volunteer of the Year Award.

Following in Gina's footsteps is Anthony Fong, General Counsel of Broadway Stages and a board member of Flushing YMCA. Anthony joined the board in 2017 and has financially supported the Flushing YMCA to reach its campaign goals for the 5K run.

Gina and Anthony encourage you to join the YMCA for a day of funding and fun. What are you waiting for? Sign up for the run on July 15 and show your support for the YMCA!