HANAC stands for the Hellenic American Neighborhood Action Committee. HANAC was founded in 1972 by George Douris. He saw the need of assistance of the Astoria community of Queens in which many immigrants from Greece were arriving. However, HANAC did not limit to the Greek population, they opened their door to all newly arriving immigrants who required assistance. According to HANAC’ official website, when George Douris was working for the Long Island Press and had formed many friendships with elected officials, including Mayor John Lindsay. Mr. Douris approached the Mayor, explained the problem of immigration in Astoria and asked for his assistance. As a result of the conversations with Mayor Lindsay, there was a planning grant for…show more content… According to HANAC’s official website, they submitted proposals to the City for a senior center and an ESL program and were successful. During the course of the years, different proposals were submitted to both the City and State, and HANAC had many of them funded. To serve the elderly, youth, and families in areas such as employment, entitlements, substance abuse, and counseling are of high-priority to HANAC.
Mission and structure: HANAC's mission statement points out the importance of serving everyone in the community without discrimination of race, creed, national origin or other defining characteristic. The first two lines of the mission statement say that HANAC is committed “to develop, implement, and administer the operation of service programs for the betterment of the community”. Finally, they say that working with other providers, the city, state and federal governments is also part of the improvement of the community. According to HANAC’s official website, they presently sponsor over 40 programs located in twelve sites in four boroughs, serving over 30,000 clients annually. HANAC offers social services including youth, senior and immigrant services; employment and education programs; counseling, and affordable housing for the improvement of the…show more content… Helping Methods: The helping methods of every program within HANAC Inc. is different, however they all aim to the same goal. In the program I intern for, the ALZ, clients are asked about their needs by the intake interviewer and then they are either referred to a different program within HANAC Inc. or to a community agency partner. The education counseling of ALZ, support adult learners and encourage them to persist in their studies and reach their goals. ALZ helps students to clearly identify their goals, connect the purpose of their studies to their goals and develop action plans. ALZ revisits goals individually or as a part of classroom activities throughout the year. ALZ accomplishes this by having case managers that use SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. In the workshop, the group participates in actually developing a plan with concrete steps and assigns a timeline. The instructor also discusses how to be specific in setting up goals. Participants are asked to complete a Career Plan Worksheet sheet to: 1. Describe their goal, 2. Where they are now (in terms of their goal), and 3. Potentially obstacles and solutions. These sheets are kept in their file and reviewed periodically. A plan of action is developed using student’s interests, values, skills, job research, goals, and potential
