The Daemen College-Seneca Babcock Partnership has received $3500 in financial support from KeyBank USA. The funding will provide general operating support, enabling Daemen and local community leaders to establish a first Center for Community Excellence in the Seneca Babcock neighborhood. The center will enable Daemen faculty and students to provide literacy training, mentoring, tutoring, health care screenings, and other much-needed services to residents of this community.
"Daemen College is grateful for the support provided by KeyBank to this important community endeavor," said Daemen President Dr. Martin J. Anisman. "We believe we can help to improve the lives of Seneca Babcock residents, and we're pleased to have KeyBank join us in this project."
"We see the Center for Community Excellence as a tremendously valuable investment in our community," said Marsha Henderson, KeyBank district president. "Key makes it a priority to support organizations that help people gain important life skills and improve their quality of life. We are proud to help Daemen College with this endeavor."
In December of 1998, Pastor Brian Rotach of the Seneca Street Methodist Church met with Daemen College social work faculty to discuss the needs of the residents of the Seneca Babcock community: Of the estimated 2000 residents in the Seneca Babcock neighborhood, forty-five percent live below poverty level; fifty-three percent of adults have not completed high school; and of the sixty-seven students enrolled in the after-school literacy program last year, more than half could not read at grade level when they started.
The Daemen social work faculty subsequently decided to focus all of their volunteer efforts and a great amount of their department's resources to improving the lives of families in the Seneca Babcock community. In collaboration with the Seneca Street Methodist Church, the Boys and Girls Club, the Community Center, and Teen Haven, they established the Daemen College Seneca Babcock Partnership. The Partnership would draw on College resources to build collaborations between community leaders, to provide needed services to residents. The College would also seek to foster a lifelong commitment to civic engagement in its students, through their volunteer efforts in the Seneca Babcock neighborhood.
In addition to the Social Work Department, the College has successfully engaged other academic departments in this work. In April of 2001, students from the Daemen Physician Assistant Program provided health education information and pulmonary function testing to residents at the Seneca Babcock Community Center Health Fair. Last year, a total of 102 students from Daemen social work, physician assistant, education, and humanities programs served over 300 students (ages 3-18) in Seneca Babcock. |
