2016-2017 in Review Page 2

CAC Impact Chart Page 3

Special Events Page 4

ONA Adult Programming Page 5

West Side Promise Neighborhood Page 6

Buffalo Beginnings Page 7

CAC Team Page 8

CAC 2016-2017 Impact Report

This year the CAC celebrated our fifth anniversary since opening

in 2011. In that time we have served 12,350 community students

and were supported by 3,364 Buffalo State service-learners and

volunteers. Each program has embodied the CAC mission of

creating reciprocal learning opportunities to promote cross-

cultural understanding and equity. A key component to

achieving the CAC mission is our collaborative approach to

partnerships. This year we saw significant deepening and

expansion of partnerships for our programs and special events.

Our fifth year has gone by quickly, with programming occurring

six days a week at the CAC and partner locations. Buffalo Beginnings Program for Newcomer Refugee

Children's long-standing collaboration with Journey's End Refugee Services and Buffalo Public Schools

expanded with a new partnership with Westminster Economic Development Initiative (WEDI) and its Focused

Learning for Youth (FLY) after school program for refugee children. Buffalo Beginnings and FLY staff

collaborated to share best practices and resources. An additional partnership with Buffalo Public's Lafayette

International High School was established to provide a home for both programs.

We continued offering Adult ESL and Citizenship classes with our partners Jericho Road Community Health

Center and NYS Office for New Americans. Jericho Road increased funding to the CAC for additional classes

based on successful implementation of our initial year of classes. Our new staff member, Eletha Thompson,

coordinates these classes along with other key responsibilities outlined on Page 8. Our services for multilingual

adults were further enhanced by the Buffalo Public Multilingual Parent Drop-in Center hosted at the CAC.

Representatives from Buffalo Public and interpreters assisted parents to answer school related questions

These developments for Buffalo Beginnings and ONA Classes demonstrate how the CAC is increasingly

integrated into Buffalo's international corridor.

Our special events further exemplify our mission and engrained approach to working collectively with

partners on campus and in the community with four key events described on Page 4. Our continued

sponsorship of the annual Taste of Diversity Festival provided Buffalo State students with the opportunity

to facilitate educational activities for 175 youth and families on Buffalo’s West Side. The Podolefsky AmeriCorps

ABLE Program, made possible through The Service Collaborative of WNY (TSCWNY), continued as a key

component in our ability to support our programs and events. In 2016-2017 6 Buffalo State students

volunteered as Podolefsky ABLEs serving a total of 2,000 hours supporting 279 individuals in educational

programming.

CAC partnerships have been integral to our growth and success over our first five years. Our connections with

local organizations enable us to align our services to simultaneously fill identified gaps and draw

on the expertise of our neighbors.

2016-2017 Program Developments

2 SUNY Buffalo State Com-munity Academic Center

Maureen McCarthy, Program Director

2011-2017 Impact Chart 3

Buffalo Public Schools

Citizens Bank

City of Buffalo

Community Academic Center

County of Erie Department of

Social Services

Every Person Influences

Children (EPIC)

H.E.A.L. International, Inc.

Herman Badilllo Bilingual

Academy

Hispanic Heritage Council of

WNY Inc.

International School #45

Journey's End Refugee Services

Jericho Road Community

Health Center

Lafayette International High

School

Lorigo's Meating Place

Newcomer Academy at

Lafayette

New York State

Niagara District Common

Councilmember David Rivera

Office of New Americans

PUSH Buffalo, Inc.

Rich Products Corporation

Say Yes to Education

SUNY Buffalo State Center for

Health & Social Research

SUNY Buffalo State Civic &

Community Engagement Office

The Belle Center

The Service Collaborative

of WNY

United Health Care

VIA Evaluation

West Buffalo Charter School

West Hertel Academy

West Side Community Services

Westminster Economic

Development Initiative Inc.

WNY United Against Drug &

Alcohol Abuse, Inc.

West Side Neighborhood

Housing Services

CAC Partners

CAC Impact Chart 2011-2017

4 Events at the CAC

Our Global Potluck in May 2017,

celebrated our Buffalo State and

community students, teachers and

volunteers.

Conflict Resolution Around

the World—Global to Local Taste of Diversity

This year the CAC celebrated our fifth

anniversary on December 1st, 2016 with an Open

House to share our current work and

accomplishments with our partners. Remarks

were given by Provost Melanie Perreault, David

Mauricio representing Buffalo Public Schools,

and Govinda Subedi and Erik Nevius, our CAC

citizenship instructors. Provost Perreault noted

since 2011, the CAC engaged more than 2,700

Buffalo State students and 32 faculty and staff to

support over 11,018 youth and family members

on Buffalo’s West Side. Over 40 people attended

the Open House.

Fifth Anniversary

A CAC panel discussion was held on

Wednesday March 15, 2017 on campus.

The discussion was moderated by Sam

MaGavern, co-director of the Partnership for

the Public Good and featured a panel of local

activists and educators. The panelists

discussed interracial and interethnic conflict

and resolutions. The program’s goal was to

understand the nuanced nature of conflicts

around the world as a local community and a

global society.

Events Constitution Day

Last fall the CAC, the Political Science Department,

and the Student Political Society & American

Democracy Project celebrated Constitution Day on

September 21, 2016 with an immigrant and refugee

panel, moderated by Dr. Peter Yacobucci.

ONA Adult Programming 5

Dahab Fukak displays her certificate

of U.S. Citizenship

Office for New Americans Classes

The Community Academic Center

has partnered with Jericho Road

Community Health Center

to facilitate the implementation

of a New York State Office for

New Americans (ONA) grant. This

grant has enabled the CAC to

offer English and citizenship

classes. In addition to the

expansion of programming, the

ONA grant has also allowed us to

pay our teachers with a quarterly

stipend. Our citizenship classes

help new Buffalonians prepare for the United States

Naturalization exam with the assistance of Buffalo State

volunteers and service-learners. Our English classes play

a vital role in preparing community students for the

citizenship test, which is administered in English.

Basanti Karki

Lok Karki

Ganga Rai

Siddig Abukar

Khinma Yee

Devi Mainali

Benino Abrahi

Dahab Fukakand

Shabar Bee

This year, we are excited to announce that nine of our

students passed the U.S. Citizenship test:

U.S. Citizenship and English Classes

6

The West Side Promise

Neighborhood (WSPN)

Initiative has had a very

productive year. WSPN

facilitated its second

annual Leadership

Program and put

together a strong

strategic plan.

Promise Neighborhoods

attempt to improve the

lives of children, from

cradle-to-college and

career by working with

others in the community. By having a common agenda, shared

measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous

communication, and a backbone organization, all children and their

families will be able to live in communities of opportunity. This summer,

13 graduates completed our second WSPN Leadership Program, a two-

month program sponsored by a grant from United HealthCare and co-

sponsored by Buffalo State, PUSH Buffalo and Open Buffalo.

Participants included community leaders and employees from PUSH,

Hispanics United, WEDI, Say Yes and the Buffalo Public

Schools. Mentors were recruited from Buffalo State, Rich Products, and

the Belle Center among others.

The WSPN team continues to grow. Currently the WSPN Core Team

has over 30 partners representing government, community-based

organizations, businesses, the Buffalo Public Schools and community

members. We have developed a strategic plan this year with the

support we received from Rich Products who had Shari Riff, Rich’s

strategic planner, work with a WSPN core team over a 3 ½ day period in

the spring.

We are excited as we work through the fall on identifying and

implementing activities consistent with the strategic plan. For a copy of

the plan, please contact Dr. John Siskar at siskarjf@buffalostate.edu.

What is a Promise

Neighborhood?

Promise

Neighborhoods—

communities of

opportunity centered

around strong

schools—to wrap

children in education,

health, and social

supports from the

cradle to college to

career. By effectively

coordinating the

efforts of schools,

families, social

services, health

centers, and

community-building

programs, all children

can fulfill their

promise.

West Side Promise Neighborhood

Buffalo Beginnings 7

"Buffalo Beginnings Program goes by so

quickly." That’s what we hear from both

newcomer students and Buffalo State

students who are Dr.

Aaron Podolefsky AmeriCorps

ABLE members. In our summer 2016 four-

week program, ABLEs worked in

small groups with Buffalo Beginnings

students teaching the English alphabet,

greetings from all around the world, colors, food, fruits and vegetables, numbers, and taking field trips.

Not long after our summer program was over we began our Buffalo Beginnings After School Program.

This year we were able to expand our long-time collaboration

with Journey's End Refugee Services and Buffalo Public

School 45. Starting in Fall 2016 we offered Buffalo Beginnings at

Lafayette High School, partnering with the Focused Learning for

Youth (FLY) after school program sponsored by Westminster

Economic Initiative (WEDI). Throughout the

program AmeriCorps ABLEs and newcomers built trusting

relationships and came to understand each other better,

despite communicating in several languages including Arabic,

Burmese, Kinyarwanda, Nepali, Somali, Swahili, and Tigrinya. All

of us were happy to see twenty-one newcomers finish Buffalo

Beginnings feeling confident and ready for school.

Abdi, Mahat, Sharmake and Vincent: They all share a love of

reading, although it may be in different languages (they

speak French, Mai Mai, Somali and Swahili). The students

joined the Buffalo Beginnings program through WEDI’s

Focused Learning for Youth (FLY) program at Lafayette

High School in Fall 2016. Sharmake said, "I love to learn,"

and remained in the class during the gym break, practicing

the alphabet with a teaching assistant. Occasionally,

Sharmake (pictured right) spoke with Kang, one of

the Dr. Podolefsky AmeriCorps ABLEs, in his native

language Swahili, asking questions about his schoolwork.

Buffalo Beginnings

214 Grant Street Buffalo, NY 14213 cac.buffalostate.edu cac@buffalostate.edu (716) 878-3289

Buffalo State student Ashley

McKillip has completed 2,000

hours with the CAC as an

AmeriCorps ABLE. Ashley served

in both Buffalo Beginnings and

ONA classes.

Sara Grzetich , pictured with ONA student

April Paw, finished a one-year AmeriCorps

VISTA term. Some of her accomplishments

include expanding adult programming,

recruiting adult students, and recruiting

and training volunteers.

Eletha Thompson is

the new Education

Assistant at the CAC.

She received her

Bachelor's degree in

Social Work and

Nonprofit

Administration from

Cleveland State

University, but is a

native Buffalonian.

She is currently

completing doctoral studies at D'Youville College, and hopes

to use her education and skills to empower and mobilize

oppressed communities to gain power, influence, and access

in society.

Eletha has developed evaluation tools for the citizenship

classes, training materials for Service-Learners and

Americorps volunteers. In the future, she hopes to expand

programs to continue to meet the mission of the CAC to serve

youth in the community. CAC Staff: Sara Grzetich, AmeriCorps VISTA

Maureen McCarthy, Program Director

Win Min Thant, Education Coordinator

Eletha Thompson, Education Assistant

ONA Teachers: Brooke Pierce, Multilingual English

Erik Nevius, Multilingual Citizenship

Govinda Subedi, Nepali Citizenship

Ze Yar Swe, Burmese English

CAC Campus Advisors: John Siskar, Senior Advisor for

Educational Pipeline Initiatives

Gary Welborn, Faculty

Sociology Department

Laura Hill Rao, Director

Civic and Community Engagement Office

CAC Team 8

Dr. Aaron Podolefsky

AmeriCorps ABLEs

Kang Guot

Monet Lewis

Ashley McKillip

Beh Meh

Matine Uwangabe

John Wesh