Neighbors Link celebrates new home

Representatives of Neighbors Link and local elected officials team up for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at the nonprofit organization’s new headquarters in Mount Kisco. MARTIN WILBUR PHOTO

By MARTIN WILBUR

Neighbors Link celebrated the recent opening of its new Mount Kisco headquarters on Tuesday that was several years in the making, and for those involved in the organization, the timing of the opening couldn’t be more critical.

Leaders of the nonprofit that helps integrate immigrants into the community by providing classes, training and a variety of services held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new 8,000-square-foot space on Lexington Avenue. The new facility, which opened in mid-to-late August, is about 3,000 square feet larger than Neighbors Link’s longtime home across the street on Columbus Avenue. 

“This center is not just a milestone for this community, but it also sends a critical message,” said Neighbors Link Executive Director Carola Otero Bracco. “It stands as a symbol of both compassion and resilience, offering important resources and community connection to those now gaining a new life. When fear and uncertainty threaten to isolate the families we work with, this center affirms the dignity and the strength of every individual, and it reminds us that inclusion is a necessity that strengthens the whole community.”

The event and the new center’s opening were the culmination of a three-year Immigrant Empowerment Campaign, which raised $8.5 million to not only complete the interior rebuild of the space but to help fund the legal work to represent clients navigating the immigration process through its Community Law Practice as well as workforce development programs, Deputy Director Jeanette Gisbert said.

The larger space will enable the organization to provide more programming to local immigrants, which had already been increasing, she said. It also provides staff with more professional offices and a more comfortable work environment. While the new headquarters has additional space, it has a better layout that will provide services more conveniently, she said. 

The center provides dedicated spaces for programs for worker training, day care and a children’s play space, an area to teach digital literacy and English classes, a kitchenette that contains a commercial-sized refrigerator and freezer to store food for its clients and larger work spaces for the employees.

While there is heightened fear in significant portions of the immigrant community due to the Trump administration immigration crackdown, Neighbors Link will continue to serve that population, Gisbert said.

“At Neighbors Link, we remain focused on our mission to strengthen the entire community through the healthy integration of immigrants,” she said. “We will not be distracted from our important work, and so we have our strategic priorities and economic development, workforce development, economic vitality, digital literacy, and we are also starting up a rapid response to some of these emerging needs.”

Those needs include community education and helping families prepare for detainment and deportation.

Assemblymember Chris Burdick (District 93) along with fellow Westchester Assemblymembers Dana Levenberg (District 95) and Amy Paulin (District 88), were able to pull together about $1.3 million in state funding over multiple years for the project. The state money paid for most of the site work to retrofit the existing space to Neighbors Link’s needs.

Levenberg, who attended the ribbon cutting, has a high immigrant population in her district that benefits from Neighbors Link.

“It was really my honor to be in a position to be able to assist,” Burdick said. “They do such terrific work. People had to recognize, too, that this is for the entire community, to the extent that we can make them neighbors.”

Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins lauded the wider community for backing Neighbors Link and their drive to bring critical services to immigrants.

“Because of the times we’re in, Neighbors Link is more important than ever, and the work that the team here does at Neighbors Link, because of the support, the generous support of so many people outside, makes a difference,” Jenkins said.

Helping make the area safer for pedestrians is a priority for the village, said Mount Kisco Deputy Mayor Theresa Flora. Much of Neighbors Links’ clientele walks to and from the center, and many have to cross busy Lexington Avenue to reach the facility, Flora said. She said the next step would be to convince Westchester County officials to install a crosswalk with signalization across Lexington Avenue at Columbus Avenue