From a neighborhood tutoring initiative to a regional student-support non-profit organization serving first-generation, refugee, inner-city & rural youth alike.

Lobbying & Activism

We fight for educational equity by lobbying for effective, progressive legislation. Helping organize community efforts around this cause is one of our foremost goals.

Student-Support Centers

Many call this tutoring. We believe it’s more than that. Our volunteers have helped established the largest Upstate New York support system and academic growth platform for first-generation students.

Community Outreach

The work we do relies on our capacity to maintain both a large volunteer base and a community of networks and organizations to reach students in need.

Student-Support Centers

  • Vietnamese Community Center

    1323 N Salina St, Syracuse, NY 13208

  • OCPL: Central Library

    447 S Salina St., Syracuse, NY 13202

  • Oswego Public Library

    120 E 2nd St, Oswego, NY 13126

  • Beauchamp Branch Library

    2111 S Salina St, Syracuse, NY 13205

  • Virtual Tutoring

    Online

Lobbying Efforts

  • Funding for Translational Services at NYSESRP Youth Programs

    Our directors worked to lobby NY-53rd Senator Rachel May on a new legislative proposal to improve refugee youth access to translational services. The mental health, economic, and educational impacts were discussed. The senator has convened a refugee resettlement agency roundtable, where we will once again pitch our proposal.

  • Safer Schools via Gun Safety Legislation

    Empower CNY co-sponsored the CNY March For Our Lives campaign on June 11, 2022. Our call-to-action was part of a national movement aimed at curbing gun violence in schools and communities. We helped make a city-wide turnout of over 400 protesters, including members of the state senate & assembly, our congress, and other regional officials.

  • Empower CNY Lobbying

    Fighting Against the Overuse of School Suspensions

    Discriminatory school suspensions plague the NYS school system. Seeing this issue affect the communities we serve, we sent numerous letters to local representatives to help move the Solutions Not Suspensions Act forward in our state legislative pipelines. Our team also worked closely with NYCLU to write a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul. Pictured is a letter-of-support from senator John Mannion.

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Empower CNY workshops

Community Outreach Efforts

Much of our work focuses on refugee & immigrant youth. The Central New York region is located at the intersection of multiple sanctuary cities (Syracuse, Ithaca, Albany, NYC), where many many immigrants find refuge. Our ties to this community have shown us that promoting civic engagement within the education of these students can improve their educational outcomes remarkably. We have helped run workshops at multiple resettlement agencies. Our partners in this sector include:

  • Refugee & Immigrant Self-Empowerment, RISE (Syracuse)

  • Journey’s End Refugee Services (Buffalo)

  • Ithaca Welcomes Refugees

  • The Center (Utica)

  • Midtown Utica

In 2021, our team learned of the extremely low literacy rates present in Syracuse City School District and other CNY school districts. After finding out that widespread book deserts are a primary contributor, we identified a solution: book drives!

Empower CNY hosted book drives across multiple high schools. In total, donors helped us collected 1,004 books! We are now working on distributing these books to local elementary/middle schools & community organizations (including refugee resettlement agencies & other student-support groups).