Make the Road, the Immigrant Group in Queens, is Building a New Office, Just Down the Road

By María Venegas

 

Make the Road NY, a non-profit organization that provides services to the immigrant community in Queens, is putting up a new building, at 104-19 Roosevelt Ave.

Vicente Mayorga, an activist organizer at Make the Road NY for 20 years, said that the population has expanded, and the need for a larger facility was great.

“It has been a process of several years to get this project approved and now it’s a reality,” he said. “We are proud of this achievement, and the community will, for sure, benefit from it.”

Mayorga said that at the current office of Make the Road NY, located about 15 blocks away from new site, is not big enough for the larger community the group is servicing.

“We have had three lawyers working in one small room at a time,” he said. “The new building will allow us to have more office space, and the services will improve considerably.”

This is a milestone for Make the Road NY, which was founded in 1997 in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and opened its Queens location in 2007. The center offers English classes, Know Your Rights and Civics classes, college access programs for youth, immigration lawyers, among other services for the community.

Twelve years later, the success of the organization has created the need for more space. The new three-story building is going to open in about two years.