Brooklyn’s network of small, community-run hubs has never been more important than now, their founders and directors say.

These hyper-local hubs — stores, community centers and food banks — go beyond their traditional roles by serving a larger purpose. They often offer free resources, programming and workshops. They serve as a gathering space for the block. And they are united by a common goal: community sovereignty.

By neighbors, for neighbors, they say.

Now, amid nationwide political, social and economic turmoil, these hubs have an outsized significance in doing what they always have: stepping in to help New Yorkers when systems or authorities fail. And while doing so, they provide a home for the community, despite facing challenges of their own.

Another World

“I think 2020 had a real shift moment,” a community organizer who goes by Cloud told Brooklyn Paper. “Not only did it clearly create some polarization, but it created a new generation of people looking to become community-involved and politically activated.”

Cloud is one of the founders and staffers at Another World, a community space in Crown Heights run entirely by a team of about 25 volunteers.

Another World, located at 629 Nostrand Ave., in addition to being a cozy, welcoming gathering space, holds free workshops, cultural programming, groups, meetings and clinics. They have printers, a library, a children’s corner, a free store, a pantry and a snack kitchen. Out back, there is a garden and grills.

The group also produces its own newspaper, written by youth from the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program.

“We envision a Brooklyn of abundance,” their website reads, “where children play on the street, neighbors greet each other by name, public services meet public needs, and everyone can afford to live well.”

Another World — which aims to build that world, Cloud said, rooted in abolitionist communism — grew out of the Crown Heights Care Collective, an organizing group that Cloud helped found in 2022. To advance their work, including a child care collective and tenant work, a permanent space was necessary. Another World was founded in June 2025.

The space still serves Crown Heights Care Collective and other groups in Central Brooklyn, but has become its own hub. Another World is not revenue generating, nor wants to be. They’re “very lucky,” Cloud said, to receive funding from private grants. 

They also rely on donations and funds from the community, and hope to be fully community-supported by June 2027.

“To take up space, to build these networks is how we live, is political,” Cloud said. “I think our goal is to show people truly that your participation, your efforts into these things, they matter. They make a difference. What you do and what we do together is everything.”

Mi Centro BK

Located in the overlap of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill, at 1060 Bedford Ave, is mi Centro BK. Next door to its affiliated bilingual preschool Mi Casita, mi Centro BK is a flexible gathering space for the neighborhood that is staffed, as-needed, by those at the school.

They offer a mix of programming, including daytime programs for babies and infants and after-school programs in Spanish for elementary-aged kids. Mi Centro BK offers other programming, including free yoga and a Griot series — a community storytelling initiative funded by the The Laundromat Project. They’ve also done cacao ceremonies, a mindful and spiritual group ritual centered around drinking ceremonial cacao.

Mi Centro BK in Bedford-Stuyvesant offers neighborhood programming ranging from free yoga to children’s activities and community storytelling.Photo courtesy of Mi Centro BK

Currently, a collective of queer inventors uses the space as a makerspace Mi Centro BK also rents out their space for events, like birthday parties.

Eva Ruiz, founder of mi Centro BK, said the space focuses on what she calls “analog connections.”

“Given the tenor of the world right now, which feels very selfish and very self-serving, I think that when you talk to people, when you live in a neighborhood, when you live in a community, we interact with each other,” Ruiz said. “We have things to give. We have things to learn. We all need space to do these things.”

Neighbors gather for a free yoga class at Mi Centro BK.Photo courtesy of Mi Centro BK

Mi Centro BK was the result of an extension and broadening of Mi Casita, which was first founded by Ruiz in her home in 2010. The “symbiosis” with the school helps keep mi Centro BK afloat, Ruiz said.

Running mi Centro BK is a challenge, Ruiz said. Supplies, rent and free or low-cost programming are expensive and hard to sustain. Mi Centro BK is funded by occasional grants, fees and rentals, and donations from the community.

“How do we create ‘by community, for community’ with these models, where those who ‘have’ do, and those who ‘can’t’ are always invited?” Ruiz, who moved to Brooklyn in 2004, said. “It takes a community consciousness to maintain those spaces.”

Mil Mundos Books

Mil Mundos Books is a Spanish and English bookstore in Bushwick, located at 323 Linden St, that sells books relating to Black, Latinx and Indigenous heritage. It’s a way of preserving Bushwick’s identity amid gentrification and fostering a community around that identity. The hub is run by volunteers, and all revenue goes to sustaining the store.

Mil Mundos Books in Bushwick combines a bilingual bookstore with community programming, workshops and events.Photo by by-Brianda Gosselin Hickey

Mil Mundos, founded in 2019, is also a community center. It offers language workshops, including Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Tagalog, as well as book launches, pop-ups and events. Along with The Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Public Library, Mil Mundos is also running a book donation project for people incarcerated at Rikers Island. 

“It’s really cool to be a resource for the community, not just for folks like us, young people who may be moving in, but also for longtime residents and migrants who come in,” Camila Sanguinetti, co-director of Mil Mundos and Bushwick resident, said. “A lot of different kinds of people.”

Stemming from Mil Mundos’ activist work is their sister non-profit, Mil Mundos En Común, a volunteer-run organization started in October 2021 that distributes essential goods, free books, and low-cost internet to the community.

One challenge of Mil Mundos is the fear of being targeted by the Trump administration, Sanguinetti said, due to the nature of their work. It is something they are always aware of. They ensure that all i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed, she said. “There’s power in community,” she added. “I feel like it’s more important to be there than to be scared.”

Mil Mundos Books celebrated its birthday with a community party featuring music, food, art, airbrushing and donations from local businesses for a raffle — a reflection of the Bushwick bookstore’s role as a neighborhood gathering space.Photo by Bethania Viana

Sanguinetti cherishes what she does. Her favorite memory is the birthday party they threw last year for Mil Mundos. Businesses donated items for a raffle, and there was airbrushing, food, music, art, and a singer. The party represented to Sanguinetti what makes Mil Mundos special.

“It’s such a huge part of my life,” she said.