Project Purpose
Our Mission: Piloting in 2024, we support current & former Chelsea NYCHA residents in NYC to live in their “purpose” by unleashing their skills, leadership and visions that positively impact the wider community.
We do this through:
Activating individual purpose
Developing skills
Providing seed funding to launch resident-led activities for the community
Building partnerships and a strong network across the neighborhood
Our Vision: A city where interconnected residents, aligned in their purpose, are financially and emotionally supported to contribute their talents to create community engagement activities that transforms neighborhoods.
This initiative is grounded in the concept of Occupational Justice, asserting everyone's right to engage in meaningful activities for a healthy and quality life.
Our Why
Project Purpose is a special capstone doctorate program created by Lisa Jasienowski.
It’s built on her 10-year nonprofit she co-founded that received grants from Hudson Yards and two Citizen Committee Neighborhood grants.
Lisa, a Chelsea resident since she was 15, has a strong commitment to building community and her work as an occupational therapist.
Over the past decade, Lisa has run a local nonprofit called Infirnity, focusing on youth and adults in the Elliott Chelsea NYCHA housing area, where many of her family members come from.
Since the pandemic, Lisa has seen the growing need to integrate her community-building skills, program management, and resident relationships, alongside her occupational therapy expertise in her own neighborhood to bring more locally driven vision, solutions and community engagement to equitable living.
This led to the creation of Project Purpose!
What is Occupational Therapy?
Emphasizes the importance of meaningful activities and participation in shaping individuals' lives and contributing to the well-being of the communities they are a part of.
Why is this program needed now?
For generations, NYCHA communities have been seen in “scarcity”. Scarcity language instills a mindset of lack, a sense of being less than, and a never ending obstacle of not feeling permission or enough. Project Purpose is created to transform the harmful perspectives that perpetuate helplessness into discovering personal power and activating the truth that resides there.
To catalyze Chelsea's diverse potential and the collaborative efforts of the arts, culture, business, education, and recreation in the area.
To support NYCHA communities during this moment of significant changes in housing.
To offer programs that empower residents and work together with the Westside Work Coalition initiative.
To build on the momentum of the success of mutual aid groups that helped during the pandemic by encouraging community initiatives led by residents.
Our Process:
Project Purpose removes scarcity and replaces it with the truth of abundance that resides within these NYCHA communities. We see and empower the talent, skills, and gifts of the residents through the development of resident-led community based programs that naturally empower, connect, and enrich the residents and community at large.
Identify gifted residents ready to unleash their idea
Locate gifted residents with high vision, talent, skills and commitment who have project ideas aimed at benefiting the community.
Incubate & Accelerate purpose
Provide resources to help residents clarify their purpose, develop project plans, and pilot opportunities. Equips residents with project management skills, entrepreneurial knowledge.
Build & foster networks
Support a network of events, programs, and partnerships involving program residents, the wider community, businesses, and government initiatives.
What makes us different?
We are building at the intersection of:
mutual aid groups,
local nonprofit organizations,
& community leadership grant organizations!
We aim for the program to create a safe and equitable space for residents to ignite and share their ideas, visions, skills and talents that can serve the collective.
We ensure that all programs and events are resident- led.
We are geographically focused in one neighborhood and aim to see a whole community and neighborhood flourish through collective impact.
We empower local residents as creators instead of passive beneficiaries, as they are usually disempowered through funded community work,
Our Intended Impact
For the Residents
Catalyze a sense of identity and enrichment for local (low income) residents.
Unleash community projects led by local residents for local residents
For the Neighborhood
Showcase the abundance of gifts & talents in (low-income) Chelsea/ Elliot Chelsea NYCHA community.
Unify the neighborhood through collective impact, public events and engagement.
For the Culture
Shape empowering beliefs & external perceptions about NYCHA residents that produce more abundance narratives.
Create momentum & impactful change from grassroots collaboration.
Our Track Record
Our 10 year track record of community building in Chelsea, led by NYCHA Elliot-Chelsea residents.
Ten years ago, we founded a nonprofit called Infirnity, to create opportunities for people to share, love and grow in the Chelsea neighborhood, with a focus on the Elliot-Chelsea community.
Our vision, for our community is to be visibly thriving, with neighbors, family members and friends holding positive space with one another, each knowing they are needed in the community they are a part of, interconnected to those around them, and feeling safe and loved in this expanded concept of home.
Our highlights over 10 years
Host of the annual resident-led block party with 500+ in attendance since 2017 (recently supported by District 3 Council Member, Erik Botcher)
Winner of the 2018 & 2019 Citizens Committee Neighborhood Grants. (For community clean up project)
Winner of 2019 Chelsea & Hudson Yards Grant for self empowerment initiative for young girls & women.
Directly involved in District 3 2018-2019 participatory budgeting project process.
Created the 1st
Elliot Chelsea NYCHA Earth Day Community Clean Up event, the first community game nights in partnership with schools, the first community newsletter, the first resident run open gym for youth and young adults.
Our free services we provided:
Tutoring Services
Character Development Program
Basketball Training and Tournament Exposure
Leadership and Mentoring
College Prep
Resident-led entrepreneurship support
Our potential partners, collaborators, supporters & friends:
District 3 Council Member, Erik Bottcher
Hudson Guild
Citizens Committee
Fashion Institute of Technology
Greenwich House
Westside Work Coalition Initiative
Join us, it’s time to activate & connect purpose from the grassroots!
“When you create an atmosphere where each individual knows what they can give, has a way in which they can activate that giving, and knows that what they give is not only needed but appreciated....you cultivate a culture of interconnectedness that enables a community to naturally thrive.”
-Lisa Jasienowski MS, OTR/L
Fun facts about Lisa:
Lisa is a mother of two, who loves Chelsea and the vibrant city of New York. She has a soft spot for Billie's Bakery and met the love of her life playing basketball on the Chelsea basketball courts!