Our Mission

SACSS (South Asian Council for Social Services) is a community based nonprofit organization that serves over 50,000 immigrant New Yorkers every year, and reaches more than 200,000. South Asian Council for Social Services’ [SACSS] mission is to empower and integrate underserved South Asians and other immigrants into the economic and civic life of NYC – particularly Queens. We champion healthcare access for all, support our seniors’ thriving, enable food justice, prepare community members for jobs through language and computer learning, provide information on immigration through a legal clinic, develop our youth’s leadership, and engage community members in their civic rights through our programs.

We meet the needs of our vibrant, diverse community with free services in any of the 20 languages our staff members speak: Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Nepali, Tamil, Telugu, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hakka, Tibetan, Malay, French and Haitian Creole, Spanish, Tagalog and English.

South Asian Council for Social Services (SACSS) was founded in 2000 in response to critical issues raised around the tremendous barriers to social services faced by New York City’s fast-growing South Asian community. Since we first opened over 24 years ago, we have become a trusted community institution for over 500,000 New Yorkers. In 2016, we made New York City history by opening the city’s first ever South Asian food pantry, and in 2021, we opened our new community center in the heart of Flushing, Queens. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, we have continued to be on the frontlines of community care and support.