Since 2007, the volunteer-run Bayanihan Filipino Community Center (BCC) in Woodside, Queens,

September 29, 2025 admin 0 Comments

Since 2007, the volunteer-run Bayanihan Filipino Community Center (BCC) in Woodside, Queens, has served as a haven for local immigrants, offering classes and other services. With the increasing scarcity of grants and contributions, however, The FilAm’s Cristina DC Pastor reports that it is facing a precarious future.

As the lone center in the area serving immigrants, according to Jonna Baldres, Community Action Coordinator of parent organization Philippine Forum, BCC doesn’t just provide a refuge for Filipinos. Local immigrants from other communities – including Ecuadoreans, Mexicans and Dominicans – also find solace in the services and programs provided by the center, or use it just as a space to relax.

The FilAm gives some examples of what the center offers.

Since it opened in 2007, the BCC has become a location for health screenings, acting workshops, language classes, immigration clinics, film showings, prayer vigils, and thousands of meetings of various Filipino American organizations in New York. To others, it is simply a place to hang out, this little corner of Roosevelt Avenue and 69th Street. The modest office is strategically located and easily accessible to Filipinos in Queens. Coming from Manhattan, one takes the 7 Train to 69th Street to get to BCC.

The BCC has started a fundraising campaign, aiming for at least $50,000 a year, which would cover rent and utilities.

Baldres explains that as in the past, the center survives off small donors, especially those from vulnerable groups who find shelter in the center.

“For the most part within the past years, it has always been the domestic workers, the youth, the trafficked survivors and other community organizations, who are the ones that have largely kept the Bayanihan Community Center going with whatever amount of small donations, pledges and pass-the-hats they can give,” she said. “We believe in the power of collective action.”