The Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside is a young, still-forming faith community built on the conviction that the process of becoming church is itself the point. Since its earliest days, the Mission has partnered with neighborhood artist-educators Ari Wolff and Cristina Ferrigno, known together as Citation Needed, hosting community art-making gatherings in its garden and sanctuary that have shaped the congregation's identity as much as its Sunday worship has.
That partnership continues to deepen through Print + Build, a twice-weekly after-school program for children in kindergarten through fifth grade from Sunnyside, Woodside, Jackson Heights, and the surrounding neighborhoods. On Bookmakers Club days, kids write, print, and bind their own books; on Process Art Club days, they paint, build, sew, and invent with new materials each week, developing their own creative voice alongside adult artists who serve as mentors and collaborators. What began as occasional Sunday gatherings is steadily growing into a fuller weekly rhythm of after-school programming, with the Mission working to keep tuition affordable for families through scholarships and a sliding scale, even as it expands to serve more children and more days of the week.