Director’s Note
A Note from the Director of Human Services
Key qualities of a vibrant community center are responsiveness, inclusiveness and dynamism. It must respond to the needs of residents and other stakeholders, include everyone’s ideas and participation and adapt to change. The University Heights Community Development Association and Gloria J Parks Community Center strive to acquire and maintain those traits.
Communication among stakeholders is a necessity and a challenge. In an effort to best address the relevant issues of the community, we are partnering with Canisius College to conduct a needs assessment of the University District. We hope that community members will take advantage of this opportunity to help create an association and community center that can meet their needs. Block clubs will be contacted as well as individuals, program participants and community organizations. We encourage each person in our district to share information that will guide our future decisions.
While existing programs are developing and expanding, new ones are in the works. We are initiating a unique summer program in 2010, actively recruiting new members for our senior group and increasing activity choices, broadening partnerships and outreach, investigating opportunities to provide professional development and education to out of school time staff and partnering with the Buffalo School District for parent education. Our objective is to offer our members support in fulfilling their goals.
Please think of us as your resource and partner in the University District. We’ll look forword to hearing from you.
Thank you,
Marilyn Sozanski
Director of Human Services