An initiative of UMMA Foundation

It takes a village.
Here is ours.

UMMA Center is a Muslim community home on Staten Island. Children, young adults, parents and grandparents come to the same building every week, and get to know each other by name.

Plan a Visit See What’s Happening

Now open at 6 Arc Place, Staten Island.

Children, teenagers, parents and grandparents in one room together, reading, talking and working side by side.

What is missing

Families have activities. What they are missing is each other.

Most families are not short of things to do. There is school, work, the masjid, practice, homework, and a group chat for every one of them.

Every part is real. The problem is that the parts do not know each other. The coach has never met the teacher, the teacher has never met the imam, and nobody sees the whole family.

Two parents, a young daughter and a community worker talking together around one small table.

Home
School
The masjid
Work
Practice and games
Whatever the phone sends them at night

All of it real. None of it connected.

UMMA Center is the one place where those worlds meet the same people, week after week, for long enough that it stops being a schedule and starts being a community.

What this is

UMMA Center is the place between home, school, the masjid and everyday life.

Not instead of any of them. Home is still home, the masjid is still the masjid, school is still school. This is where those worlds meet the same people often enough, and for long enough, that real relationships have time to grow.

Muslim rooted, and open to everyone. Faith is in how the place runs rather than in a lecture about it: in character, in how people treat each other, in prayer, in service, in showing up.

Known: People learn your name. They notice when you stop coming, and they ask where you were.
Needed: Every age has something to receive and something to give. A nine-year-old can set out chairs. A grandmother can teach. Nobody here is only a guest.
Growing: Children become teenagers, teenagers become young adults, and young adults come back as the ones teaching. The ladder only works if the top of it stays.

Every stage of life

There is a room for you, whatever age you are.

Some things are built for one age group. Many things are for everyone at once, in the same building, on the same night. Nobody ages out of this place.

Explore Programs by Life Stage

How it fits together

One foundation. One village. One generation growing inside it.

What sits inside what

UMMA Foundation
The parent nonprofit. It also runs UMMA Relief, UMMA Farm, UMMA Studio, Yala and Hope Bus.
contains
UMMA Center
The community village on Staten Island. The building, the week, and the people who learn your name.
contains
NEXGEN
The youth and young adult community growing up inside it. Friday Nights is theirs and keeps their name.

The UMMA App

Not built yet. One day it may help the households already here stay connected between visits. It will never replace walking through the door.

And what makes it real

Programs: The sessions, classes and gatherings on the calendar. A real thing at a real time, never a category.
Families: The members. A household joins UMMA Center, not one person.
Mentors, teachers and volunteers: The adults who come back for the same people every week. The part that cannot be bought.
Partners: Other organizations who bring what they run into the building. We do not have to operate everything.
The building at 6 Arc Place: Somewhere you can walk into. The first home of this model, not the whole of it.

Where we are

What is real today, and what is not yet.

We would rather you trust the first column than be impressed by the third.

Now

What is already true

The first UMMA Center is open at 6 Arc Place on Staten Island.
9 programs run here, every session on the calendar with a real date and room.
Friday Nights and Family Sundays are free. You do not have to join anything to come and look.

A fuller week, so that more of the ladder has somewhere to be on more days.
More mentors, teachers and volunteers. The week only grows as fast as the adults do.
Clear ways for a family to move from visiting, to taking part, to running something.

North star

Not built yet

Where this is meant to go

A community home another city could run, because how it works is written down rather than carried in a few heads.
A village within reach of every Muslim family that wants one. We are one building. A direction, not a schedule.
Young people who arrive as participants and stay long enough to end up teaching and leading.

Who runs it

You should know the people your family will be around.

That is not a nice extra. It is the whole basis on which a parent decides anything about a place like this, so here is what you can check today, and how to meet the people in person.

The legal entity: UMMA Foundation Inc, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
EIN: 86-3883211. Donations are tax deductible.
Where we are: 6 Arc Place, Staten Island, NY 10306. Open in maps.
Keeping children safe: We publish how we do it, in full. Read the safeguarding policy.
Money: Read the most recent financials

Come and meet them

Our team page is not published yet, so we are not going to ask you to take our word for anything. Book a walkthrough instead. You will meet whoever is running the room your child would be in, ask them whatever you want, and decide after that.

Plan a Visit Ask us a question first