...the Answer, is Blowing in The Wind

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show...(the opening lines of David Copperfield as written by Charles Dickens;inspired by MTM). Or at least this ACCOUNT will, perhaps, have a reflection on whether I'm going to be the hero in my own life.


I love you - those three words have my life in them.
~ by Alexandrea to Czar, Nicholas III ~

Below is an excellent essay written by AMERICORPS colleague, Jacquie Ornsby. She is
mass-mailing this appeal to any and all 'officials' whom, having a sympathetic ear and heart, may devote energies to reverse this decision to dissolve AMERICORPS BUFFALO.

There is a maze of politics here. To be honest with you, I don't fully understand all of it. And I am not sure the operatives of AmeriCorps Buffalo @ The Belle Center fully understand it either. In asking Daytuan Antonetti what happpened, the canned response is"...it was Albany's decision." Great, there are over one million people in Albany. All one million~~~made this decision!?!? The other thing that vexes me is that AMERICORPS is part of the original VISTA(Volunteers in service to AMERICA) program. If WNY AmeriCorps, out of the former SKY ROOM @ Seneca & Cazenovia Sts and AmeriCorps Buffalo out of The Belle Center on Maryland St. are both doing community outreach~~~and doing it to the benefit of their respective communities, why can't they both co-exist??? Yes, Mark Lazzaro gets all the publicity with the community-outreach ventures that they undertake. While~~~blessed are the meek~~~AmeriCorps Buffalo just goes out, without the fanfare, and executes their tasks to make the results of a project, better than when it was first enacted. During my tenure @ The Belle Center the most obvious WNY AmeriCorps fanfare publicity-stunt~~~and resulting 'miscarriage-of-justice' was the EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER on Massachusetts Ave. And keep in mind when Lazzaro machinated this plot, WNY AmeriCorps was in WEST SENECA, not South Buffalo. Lazzaro beat the echelon of the AmeriCorps Buffalo, to-the-PUNCH. In effect, Lazzaro had gotten David Homes to get this volunteer organization(WNY Americorps), from West Seneca, to do this HIGH-VISIBILITY VOLUNTEER collaboration~~~on the Middle West Side; OUR TURF!!! Were we upset?? Sure!!! The fall-out?? In light of the recent decision to phase Americorps Buffalo out, I'd have to say the fallout is huge. The line of thinking is probably going this way...if WNY AmeriCorps is doing it all, including the WEST SIDE, why are we funding the duplicity, to begin with?? Those answers are provided below in the encapsulation written by Jacjuie Ornsby. We do many community-outreach functions, without the fanfare, that WNY AmeriCorps simply does not do.

In the front-page of this Saturday, 17 July 2010, Buffalo News(the article in its entirety can be googled)titled: The Lord's Work or the Landlord's?---there is a story about decrepit housing in the FRUIT BELT area of the Lower East Side that WNY AmeriCorps is trying to address. I think some of the machinations to facilitate these corrections are ethically questionable. First of all WNY AMERICORPS is a volunteer service organization in the tradition of VISTA; not a REAL ESTATE organization. The intention is to buy the default-properties cheap, renovate them, then sell them to low income buyers at affordable prices. Who is doing the selling? Where are the mortgage funds coming from that is the underpinning of the purchase? who is going to manage the mortgage-payment-plans??? This is not volunteerism. [Oh, don't worry, I'm ahead of some of you folks, already!!!]. But even with the deviations from the original VISTA theme, so far Mark Lazzaro has his steam-rolling machine grandstanding for 'Albany's" attention and approval, and getting both. It appears AmeriCorps Buffalo doesn't even look like it is going to be relegated to the sidelines. It appears we are going to be packing our bags, by the end of December, 2010.

For me personally, it is another shot-in-the-face. All my life I have worked. And most of it in the private-sector. In the private-sector, it is all about dollars-and-cents, so I understand how payrolls can be affected. But come-on!!! In a community-outreach, non-profit, where the pay is a joke~~~anyways. The story of my adult career-world. Except for Airborne/D H L Express, Rich Goulah Trucking, and American Freight System, everything else I was able to sink my teeth into full-time, ended up being short-term disasters.

For myself personally, this dissolution means that I will be 'scrambling' again. So much of my adult career experience, has been a desert of scrambling. The only oasis; and thank God, it was a wonderful 17-year excursion, was with AIRBORNE/D H L Express. With some complications now a part of this Applicant's Patch-Work Quilt, the question that begs to be asked is~~~can a door, like ABX, open for me~~~one more time???

And the answer is...

THE ESSAY, by Jacjuie Ornsby:
I reach out to you today to appeal to your sense of social justice. NY State will no longer fund Buffalo AmeriCorps programs which serve those who desperately need them. Indeed, we AmeriCorps members who currently serve our community in 2009-2010 must find new jobs by December 31st. Thanks to AmeriCorps, we have the skills, training, references, resources and support to make us employable.

The marginalized people whom we serve in our neighborhood need us. We shovel their walks, mentor their children, clean and rebuild their community. We fed 1200 families as part of the "Feed the Children" initiative. We give bags of wholesome food twice each month to 200+ families. We teach English to refugees. As AmeriCorps, we pledge to get things done - and we do! Who will take our place?

I implore you to pray for our community and to express your support for Buffalo AmeriCorps. Please pray for the continuation of our good works at worship this Sunday. Please appeal to local and state officials; urging them to reinstate funding for Buffalo AmeriCorps.

The Lower Westside Community needs your help. Last Friday, Buffalo AmeriCorps was informed by Susan Stern, Chair of the New York State Commission on National and Community Service and Mark Walter, Executive Director that Buffalo AmeriCorps will not be funded for 2010-2011.

You can imagine that it was a shock. We had applied for an expansion based on the expansion of National Service by the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009. You don't always get what you ask for but we never expected to get zero!

We do need your help because Buffalo AmeriCorps members are a core of what we do, not only in the neighborhood and the city, but in our center with the children. There are 62 children enrolled in our Day Care, 101 enrolled in our summer camp, and 125 enrolled in our 21st Century Community Learning Center summer program. Buffalo AmeriCorps members serve alongside staff to make these programs work. As we have told you before, we provide services to children and youth ages 6 weeks to 24 years. We are doing everything we can to provide hope, to prepare youth not only to consider college, but to be ready academically and financially.
The 44 Buffalo AmeriCorps members who are ages 17-24 embrace the opportunity to serve their community and nation while learning the skills and attitudes required to forge a future of hope. Many of the current Buffalo AmeriCorps members are in their first year. It is amazing watching them grow, but as you would expect some grow faster than others. Those who are in their first year will now be thrown out into a world of the Great Recession when their current term expires.
Anything you can do to help will be appreciated. We are available at your convenience to meet with you to talk about the situation. Please let us know if you need any further information or documentation to inform your decision to advocate for us.

FOOTNOTE: We, as well, reach-out to the community in a very big way during Christmas whereby over 3000 families last year had a Christmas that included gifts---whom otherwise, would not have had. And I've been making some verifiable progress with the Portal Program that exists at The Belle Center where we are trying to get disadvantaged and underprivileged young adults skill-set-ready for the work-world. I always felt this was a meaningful endeavor~~~and I still do.
--{-=@
Hickok
The Promise