Announcing the Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Foundation Training and Support Fund

We are excited to announce the launch of the Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Foundation Training and Support Fund. The fund will ensure the quality and power of Morningside Center’s work for years to come by supporting the people who deliver our programs in schools: Our staff developers.  

Morningside’s impact on educators, students, and families across New York City and beyond depends on the amazing team of 30+ staff developers who bring our work into schools. They bring with them their own special gifts – their energy, wisdom, creativity, and humor. They share their hearts and souls.

The cost of training, coaching, and supporting our staff developer team isn’t covered by our contracts with schools and districts. The Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Foundation Training and Support Fund will fill that gap. 

Over the past 15 years, the Foundation has supported some of Morningside’s deepest work, including the innovative projects of Emma Gonzalez and the development and deepening of our racial equity work. The Foundation is now in the process of sunsetting (closing), and as a part of that process, in August 2023, it awarded Morningside Center a $500,000 grant to establish the Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Foundation Training and Support Fund.  

On September 19, we inaugurated the Fund with a day-long training of our staff developer team. Here, we share photos from this powerful gathering, and a poem that staff developers co-created that day. 

All work made possible by the Fund is dedicated to the life and work of Charles Lawrence Keith. 
 

About Charles Lawrence Keith 

Charles Lawrence Keith spent part of his childhood in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in NYC, where he met social worker Clara Miller, his lifelong companion. Keith went on to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight fascism in Spain, and was taken prisoner by Franco’s forces. He later served as a merchant seaman in World War II. Back home, he helped found the National Maritime Union and fought against anti-democratic unionists on the docks of New York. 

He became a house painter in Greenwich Village and began buying and rehabilitating buildings, mostly residential. This is how he made his money, which he promptly invested in causes close to his heart. Keith was a feminist and one the first investors in the Women’s Bank of NY. He personally funded a neighborhood theater and was known for his generosity to the actors, artists, and social activists he encountered on his daily walks. 

Shortly before his death in 1974, he founded the Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Foundation. Its stated goal: “the preservation and defense of human rights and opposition to tyranny and oppression.” 

We are honored to carry on the legacy of Charles Lawrence Keith.

Give and Receive (A Co-Created Poem) 

By Morningside Center Staff Developers

Here and now 

Be together. 

In a harmonious way 

Together 

Nothing lasts forever 

Time remains of the essence 

Patience 

Kindness 

Gratitude & appreciation 

Generosity & love 

Love always wins! 

Open-hearts and minds 

Open doors that lead to surprises 

Open hearts that allow you to let go 

Open hearts allow you to be free and loved. 

Courage to 

Love, love to 

Forgive – let go 

My priorities are not someone else’s emergency. 

Do what you know  

is correct, despite what 

the majority thinks. 

Be light & love 

Have/hold grace 

I apologize for the tone I 

Used when I should 

Have taken a pause 

Instead 

I hope that all interactions 

are meaningful enough & grounded  

on enough love to overcome 

any harshness or discomfort 

in our day to day. 

May years of love 

not be forgotten 

in the hatred of  

a minute  

Happiness is here right now, 

Nothing To hurry 

Nothing To worry 

You Are Deeply Loved 

We are the ones 

We have been waiting for. 

A small group of like- 

minded folk can 

change the world. 

Wrapping myself in patience & 

Compassion so I can be better for others.... 

Yes. And that blanket 

is all seasons, all reasons 

And I deserve it.