{"id":278955,"date":"2026-06-26T15:00:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T15:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/278955\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T15:00:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T15:00:49","slug":"bp-richards-announces-nearly-2-9-million-in-funding-for-new-river-fund-community-center-in-richmond-hill-qns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/278955\/","title":{"rendered":"BP Richards announces nearly $2.9 million in funding for new RIVER FUND community center in Richmond Hill \u2013 QNS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1200\" height=\"801\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bp-richards-river-fund-community-center01.jpg\" class=\"crop-center wp-post-image\" alt=\"At a June 25 press conference in Richmond Hill, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards announced that $2.87 million dollars would be utilized to fund a new RIVER FUND community center.\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>At a June 25 press conference in Richmond Hill, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards announced that $2.87 million dollars would be utilized to fund a new RIVER FUND community center. <\/p>\n<p>Photo by Ramy Mahmoud<\/p>\n<p>At a June 25 press conference in<a href=\"https:\/\/qns.com\/neighborhoods\/richmond-hill\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Richmond Hill,<\/a> Queens Borough President Donovan Richards announced that $2.87 million dollars would be utilized to fund a new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.river.fund\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">RIVER FUND <\/a>community center.<\/p>\n<p>The new facility will expand RIVER FUND \u2014 a nonprofit organization founded in 1991 to serve low income New Yorkers and combat poverty \u2014 from the size of a private home to a three story, 7,000-square-foot property, allowing for enhanced services in terms of employment support, mentoring and other programs.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-614842\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bp-richards-river-fund-community-center02.jpg\" alt=\"At a June 25 press conference in Richmond Hill, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards announced that $2.87 million dollars would be utilized to fund a new RIVER FUND community center.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  \/>At a June 25 press conference in Richmond Hill, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards announced that $2.87 million dollars would be utilized to fund a new RIVER FUND community center.Photo by Ramy Mahmoud<\/p>\n<p>Richards believes that this expansion could not have come at a better time for New Yorkers: \u201cWe often talk about the affordability crisis, but we also know that there\u2019s a food insecurity crisis at our doorsteps of this borough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOrganizations like this have never been more important,\u201d he continued.\n<\/p>\n<p>He noted recent Supreme Court decisions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org\/blog\/supreme-court-immigration-ruling-tps-asylum-seekers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">against<\/a> immigration, violence towards New Yorkers of color and the high cost of living in New York City as reasons to further support RIVER FUND\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n<p>Swami Durga Das, founder and CEO of RIVER FUND described the funding towards an expanded facility as \u201ctransformational.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt really is life changing for the community,\u201d he said.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-614844\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bp-richards-river-fund-community-center03.jpg\" alt=\"Borough President Donovan Richards, RIVER FUND CEO Swami Durga Das and Douglas Wurtz \" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  \/>Borough President Donovan Richards, RIVER FUND CEO Swami Durga Das and Douglas WurtzPhoto by Ramy Mahmoud\n<\/p>\n<p>The new RIVER FUND facility will be located adjacent to the current headquarters at 89-11 Lefferts Blvd. A projected completion date has not yet been announced.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-614845\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bp-richards-river-fund-community-center04.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  \/>Photo by Ramy Mahmoud<\/p>\n<p>RIVER FUND operates a large food pantry, supporting and nourishing thousands of families each week. Services also include tutoring, job training, ELL classes, college scholarships and assistance to receive social services.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.river.fund\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">river.fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a June 25 press conference in Richmond Hill, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards announced that $2.87 million&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,7919,124,123,26594,107188],"class_list":["post-278955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-borough-president-donovan-richards","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-river-fund","tag-swami-durga-das"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}