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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we conclude our 10 part end-of-year gratitude series with 10 Heroes of Community Well-being for 2020. We've been bringing on 10 individuals or leaders of community groups who may not make the headlines much, but who have helped make life livable in this year of so much grief and so much need, and so much thirsting for justice.

There are many more groups out there doing great work, but these 10 have been brought to our attention, some by some of you who've called in, some by colleagues or friends. We've been sharing these 10 stories to represent all the ways that some of us are serving the many of us in need of help. Also, a last reminder that tonight at 7:00 o'clock, we will have a WNYC Zoom event to honor three groups, in particular, who've been contributing to community well-being this year.

It's a new annual award that I'm very honored that the station has established in my name called The Lehrer Prize for Community Well-being to bring more attention to some of the people doing important work at the community level in our area. You can get a reservation to join us on Zoom tonight, that 7:00 PM event, at wnyc.org/LehrerPrize, go to wnyc.org/LehrerPrize, if you want to peer in as I host with Terrance McKnight, and we have those three awardees. Plus the wonderful celebrity chef who also does amazing community well-being work of his own. chef Jose Andres tonight at 7:00.

With me now for a few minutes is our final guest in this series, Manuel Castro, the executive director of the organization NICE. NICE is an acronym that stands for New Immigrant Community Empowerment. They are a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable and precarious immigrant workers in New York with a focus on day laborers, domestic workers, and newly arrived immigrants. Manuel, thanks so much for a few minutes. Welcome to WNYC.

Manuel Castro: Hi, Brian. Thank you for having me on the show.

Brian: Tell us more about NICE and what you do in normal times and how it had to change this year with COVID?

Manuel: NICE, we serve newly arrived immigrants from all over the world really, but in particular Latin America, who arrive in New York city often looking for work and often Queens is their first destination. We have a worker center that works with day laborers, who congregate often by the PQE entrance to the highway looking for jobs at employment agencies in various neighborhoods.

We provide them with workforce development services, training, support with worker rights cases. Our day-to-day is quite busy pre-COVID. We often open daily from 7:00 AM to about 10:00 PM at night. We are quite a busy organization just because of the amount of support that these communities need. Now, during COVID-

Brian: It must have been hard at the beginning of COVID when construction was shut down, because a lot of the day laborer work is construction work. Since you also represent domestic workers in the populations that you're talking about, a lot of people aren't taking workers into their homes like they were before. I imagine your communities have been very hard hit.

Manuel: Yes. In fact, we probably saw the impact of the pandemic very early on. As you probably recall the pandemic, COVID hit pretty hard in our neighborhoods in Queens really early on. People started to come to us for assistance. We started a food pantry really early on, around early March. In fact, we started to see a lot of our members, a lot of the people we support fall sick to the virus and so, yes, in fact, a lot of people lost their jobs early on, lost their income. A lot of the workers we support are undocumented, so they rely on the money they're able to make on a daily basis.

Brian: One specific problem that you told our producer that has gotten more acute since the pandemic began working with undocumented day laborers is wage theft. How so?

Manuel: Well, upon the closure of a lot of the worksites that day laborers were working, many of them were owed wages, a lot of the construction sites closed without paying them. They came to us for assistance. We generally help with that. We call the employer would try to figure things out before connecting them to lawyers and with the Department of Labor, but it's been an ongoing issue.

We haven't been able to get a lot of these workers paid. A lot of the construction companies, often subcontractors, have gone out of business. The employers are nowhere to be found. Yes, it's a community that has been really impacted by all of this. Unfortunately, we still see a lot of the bad acting contractors, we try to collect corners and take advantage of workers. We continue to receive a lot of workers with these wage theft cases.

Yes, Brian, one of the things I wanted to add is that we had to remain open through the pandemic, because of the lack of food and just general assistance that the documented immigrant community has received through these months. A lot of our staff and our volunteers have been at the front, in the center of the recovery and the emergency response process. In those early months, a lot of people were infected by COVID.

I was listening to some of your callers beforehand. I was infected by COVID early on in March, in fact, and it's really hard to know where one picks up the virus and that definitely has lingering effects on the community, and we're very concerned about this next wave that's coming.

Brian: We've talked before on the show about how undocumented immigrants are left out of the federal pandemic assistance programs. How much have you had to pick up that for financial relief and where are you getting money to do that?

Manuel: We've looked for resources everywhere we can find. Fortunately, donors, New Yorkers have really come through with donations to our organization to be able to sustain these programs. A lot of local foundations have supported us. We received a very generous support from the open society foundations, for instance from the Robin Hood Foundation, among others, to be able to provide direct cash assistance to the immigrant workers who we don't have anywhere else to go to.

Recently we received another donation from the Robin Hood Foundation to be able to support 400 more families to get them by through for the upcoming holidays. We realized that so many of the families where young children were frankly rationing food because they just don't have enough cash to buy enough. For us, it breaks our heart to live in a city like New York City and to have to help people experiencing food insecurity and fear of what to do next, because frankly, there's just a clear path in how they're going to get through this next six months, year or even years to the recovery phase.

So, yes, we've been very fortunate. The New York [unintelligible 00:08:44] have been a major supporter of our food pantry. We've been able to sustain it because of their support, but frankly, we have thousands of families on our waitlist. One of the hardest decisions to make is who gets the support. We just can't get to everyone that needs it right now.

Brian: What a horrible decision to have to make, who gets support and who doesn't, when your resources are limited and you're trying to serve a particular community or set of communities where you're trying to represent everybody there and serve everybody. If listeners want to help with donations or volunteers, I don't know if you take volunteers, how can they get in touch?

Manuel: Well, the most accessible way to reach us is by visiting our website at nynice.org. We're also on social media. You can find us there. The name of our organization is New Immigrants Community Empowerment. We're known as NICE, and we have a very active group of volunteers, of donors. We're always welcoming donations of any kind, whether it'd be food, whether it be cash or for workers, support for our organization.

Certainly, the next several months are going to be tough through the winter. More and more day laborers are out of work, more and more people are dealing with having to know what's next for them, whether they're going to lose their housing or whether they're going to have enough cash to buy food. We welcome everyone's support and we're only going to get by by the supportive of New Yorkers, everyday New Yorkers, who can really feel for their neighbors and can see for themselves to disparities of how New Yorkers are dealing with this pandemic.

Brian: We have a minute left. You told our producer that you are a DACA recipient, a dreamer from when you were younger. I'm sure you're happy about the recent court ruling that fully reinstates the DACA program over the Trump administration's objections and we'll see what the Biden administration does in that area. Since you represent new immigrants, have people pretty much stopped coming especially to Corona and Jackson Heights, the areas of Queens where you're concentrated, because this is no place to come to right now or not really?

Manuel: No, actually we continue to see newly arrived immigrants in our neighborhoods, often actually coming from other states to live with their families. Often families have to combine resources. It's the only way to get by. Yes, we continue to see-- Because people come here to also reunite with families and that's an important factor.

Brian: Manuel Castro, the executive director of the organization NICE, which stands for New Immigrant Community Empowerment. Thank you so much for your work and for contributing to community well-being in 2020, and for being the final guest in our 10-part Community Well-being series. Thank you.

Manuel: Thank you so much, Brian.

Brian: Listeners, one final invitation to join us on Zoom tonight at 7:00 for a Lehrer Prize for Community Well-being event. You can make a reservation@wnyc.org/LehrerPrize.

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