IMPORTANT UPDATE JANUARY 13, 2025

An Important Message from Our Director:

As many of you may be aware, Team TLC NYC is in a time of transition right now. My assistant directors, Val Coleman and Ivan Helfand, and I have been working very hard for weeks to figure out the right path for us going forward, and have finally decided what to do, based not on emotion, but on hard data and an analysis of the facts on the ground. Fear not, Team TLC NYC isn’t going anywhere, but the focus of our mission is shifting.

We are always required to follow our "North Star," the mission statement that demands that we do what is best for the migrants we serve. We have always worked with limited resources, and now is no exception. We knew we had to make some difficult choices and set our priorities based on the most pressing needs of the newest New Yorkers, as we always have.

So we looked at the data. The influx of new arrivals into the city has fallen precipitously from a high of thousands of arrivals per week at its height to its current level of under 100 people per week, many of whom have places to stay and friends or family here to assist them. Of course, we anticipate that these numbers will fall even more drastically in 2025. So the number of "new arrivals" -- the specific group of people we serve in the Little Shop of Kindness -- is steadily going down.

This reality has been reflected in our own data at the shop. The number of people served each week has gone down steadily since October, and among those guests, the number of repeat customers has gone up steadily. This means we are serving fewer and fewer "new arrivals,” people who just got to New York and have very little to their name. That was always the point of the Little Shop of Kindness, from its initial incarnation at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, before we even started calling it the Little Shop: to help people who have just gotten here, in their most vulnerable moment. We have helped tens of thousands of people as they first set foot in New York, but new people are no longer coming here in the numbers they used to.

However, there are still a lot of asylum seekers in New York who have been here for a while and need other forms of assistance in addition to, and perhaps more than, clothing and supplies.

So the mission has once again shifted, as it has many times since TLC was created in 2019. We have always pivoted to address the reality on the ground, and we are pivoting again now.

The demand for legal assistance for the people already here has skyrocketed and is expected to continue to increase once the new administration takes office. Tracey Kitzman and the Team TLC NYC legal team have done an incredible job up to this point with basically no resources. They have been asking us for more funding for quite some time now, money we have not been able to provide. The Little Shop of Kindness is a very expensive project to operate, and has taken up almost all of our budget. It likely will become even more expensive with the need for additional security, while serving fewer and fewer people.

So the legal team has been left largely to fend for itself on a shoestring budget ever since Tracey bravely took on the leadership of that project. But it has become clear that it would be untenable for the legal team to continue its work without additional funding, including money to hire a paralegal to handle a lot of the clerical work that Tracey and other lawyers have been doing themselves. This is especially true as the need for legal assistance is expected to increase in 2025. Accordingly, following our "North Star," we have decided that the best use of our limited resources would be to shift our focus from clothing and supplies to the incredible work our legal team does with its legal triage tables, pro se legal clinics, and know-your-rights sessions.

Thus, sadly, we have decided to close the Little Shop of Kindness and redirect the majority of our limited funding and other resources primarily to the legal team. We have already confirmed with our generous rent-paying benefactor and the WES Foundation, which granted us funds to increase our capacity, that the funds they have committed to us will be available for our legal team.

We invite everyone to volunteer with the legal team in any capacity they can, as some of you have already been doing for a long time. There is a lot you can do, including translating, intake, organizing, paperwork, errands, childcare and more. This is truly where we are most needed right now.

We will continue to distribute clothing and supplies to migrants in need at locations other than the shop, including at legal team events, houses of worship, schools, shelters, and our partner organizations’ locations, perhaps even through a mobile “shop on wheels.” There are a great many possibilities for how we can move forward, so we will need everyone to stay engaged and involved. New doors are already opening for us as this one sadly closes. Stay tuned for exciting new announcements about all that!

In addition, I am working closely with partner organizations to figure out other ways in which we all can best help the migrants who are already here. We are closely monitoring the situation, and have been gathering the most experienced and knowledgeable people together, working with city personnel and amongst ourselves to form a strategy for 2025 and beyond. Team TLC NYC will be a big part of that. The new focus of our mission will include activism and finding creative ways to protect and assist the newest New Yorkers in every way we can. I welcome your ideas and input on how we might best help these vulnerable people, who will be all the more vulnerable going forward. I will be calling upon all of our volunteers and supporters to continue the mission in the smartest, safest, and most effective way possible. I will keep you posted on what strategies develop. Believe me, there is a lot going on below the radar right now.

This has been an agonizing decision, and we have struggled to find a way to pursue the most important priorities of our mission without having to close the shop, but ultimately we decided it is not possible.

I love the Little Shop of Kindness with all of my heart. It is my baby. I have never been more proud of anything else in my entire life (don't tell my son that). And I have never before worked with such an amazing, compassionate, driven, generous, and all-around wonderful group of people in any of my various careers. The shop has been an incredible light in an otherwise dark story, and it has changed many lives -- not just those of our guests, but those of our volunteers as well. We have inspired thousands of people to help this most vulnerable population in any way they could, not just here in New York, but also across the country and around the world.

We should all be deeply proud of what we built and accomplished at the shop. But this phase of our mission has run its course, and it is time to buckle down and take on the next phase.

So, the next phase will be this: The last day the shop will be open to guests will be next Friday, January 17. We will take the week of January 20 off as planned, and then return on January 27 to start the process of closing down the store. We anticipate that process will take us through February, and we will need all of your help and support in getting it done right. I will be cancelling existing LSOK shifts and sending out a new sign-up with shifts to help with the closing, which I will circulate soon.

Please do not contact us asking us to reconsider. We have gone over this ground a thousand times. You cannot imagine the agonizing discussions, arguments, tears, and sleepless nights that have led up to this difficult choice. Please find a way to support this decision and recommit to our mission going forward.

I am profoundly thankful to you for all your hard work and support in accomplishing all we have done at the Little Shop of Kindness. As sad as we are, we have much to celebrate. We have triumphed in a way that few others have during this crisis, and we truly have achieved the goals of this phase of our mission.

Through many intense challenges and setbacks, Team TLC NYC has never let anything defeat us, and we won’t let anything defeat us now. Let’s move forward with courage and determination, as we always have.

Thank you so much for helping to make this miracle happen.

Love,
Ilze