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In the fall of 2003 I was walking on a broken down street in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. I was dejected. I had just finished another day of work as a middle school counselor. I worked with amazing children whose futures were crumbling under the pressures of their decaying school, violent streets and ruptured families. I felt my student’s hopelessness deep down in my heart but had nothing to comfort their despair. Just then a warm breeze smelling of pine rushed down the sidewalk to me. There are no pine trees in Flatbush, I thought. But just ahead of me I looked up to see this lone, beautiful, healthy pine in the middle of all that dirty, angry concrete. And I was comforted because that scent brought me back to my childhood summers in Maine. I thought about cool rivers, green grass and great friends. And I knew these inner city children needed to smell that pine.

In September of 2004 Eastern Horizons began.

Ari Lurie
Founder/Director