The Booker T. Washington Community Center will celebrate 80 years of benefiting Auburn's youth beginning Friday, Nov. 9.
Sam Tenney / The Citizen
Merritt Fletcher, program director of the Booker T. Washington Center, stands in front of the center on Chapman Avenue Friday morning. Fletcher helped plan the center's 80th anniversary events.
Merritt Fletcher, program director of the Booker T. Washington Center, stands in front of the center on Chapman Avenue Friday morning. Fletcher helped plan the center's 80th anniversary events.
The celebration will commence with a dinner and a dance and conclude with a Sunday afternoon of gospel singing by area choirs.
Over the course of that weekend, the center will honor the contributions of the men and women who worked to shape the lives of every child who spent an after-school afternoon within its walls since 1927.
After the Friday night dinner, a wall of fame featuring accomplished African-Americans like Mohammed Ali and Sojourner Truth will be rededicated as a Booker T. Washington wall of fame.
The new wall in the main lobby of the center will include Collins Hinton, who helped secure funding for the construction of the current center building as chairman of the board in the 1970s. Fellow inductee Allen McLeod was executive director when that building was completed in 1981.
Other past directors who will be honored are Fred Richardson and Paul Richardson Sr., whom program director Merritt Fletcher counts among his inspirations.
“Whenever I wonder how I should run the center, I just remember what Uncle Paul did, and I expand on those things,” Fletcher said.
The new wall of fame will also feature Joanne Reddick, a former chairman of the board who added several sports to the center's existing selection of football, basketball and baseball.
Fletcher credits former assistant director Hazel Jeffries, another inductee, with expanding the scope of activities at the center to areas outside of sports. She worked with the late William Jackson, a former director and fellow inductee, who was also known as Mr. NAACP. Fletcher feels Jackson helped include the center in the Auburn community “so we weren't just sitting on the side.”
Fletcher added about Jackson, “He had a knack for making people understand that we were people too.”
Inductee Gwen Webber McLeod helped the center reach out to local schools and built the foundation for its after-school programs in Auburn and Moravia. For several years, Gertie Richardson and Justine Copes contributed their time to the center, as a preschool teacher and a volunteer, respectively.
Rounding out the wall of fame roster is Carrie Canady, who oversaw the center's preschool program at its largest size, and Eleanor Hardy, a former executive director who went on to become the city of Auburn's social services supervisor.
The anniversary dinner will also honor the contributions of long-time volunteers Bessie Williams, Mary Robinson and Ella Mae Humphrey, as well as United Way and the Cayuga County Youth Bureau.
Sunday's gospel music concert will feature the choirs of the Roosevelt Memorial Baptist Church, St. Luke's Church in Syracuse, the Apostolic Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and Holy Ghost Deliverance Church.
Every day the Booker T. Washington Community Center hosts about 100 area children, both elementary age and older school students who come to the center through its outreach programs at Auburn and Moravia schools.
For no registration fee, the center offers them tutoring and life skills classes every afternoon, followed by sports and other special activities like visiting seniors at the Mercy Health & Rehabilitation Center or picking apples at nearby orchards.
Executive Director Monique Williams has accessed funds that allow the center to offer area youth special programs at affordable prices, such as a $300 week-long college visit bus trip and a $20 “Amazing Race” scavenger hunt through New York City.
“It's through her drive and her spirit that the center continues to be diversified,” Fletcher said.
The center's SIMUKAI and Black Knights
programs offer adolescent youth educational and volunteer opportunities to advance their passage into adulthood.
Despite the wealth of activities the center offers, Fletcher feels the perception of the center as all-black is still a detriment.
“They think it's a black children's place and there are connotations that come with that, like that their kids might get hurt,” Fletcher said.
The center's race ratio is actually half-white, half-black during the summer and slightly more weighted toward African-American youth during the school year. Fletcher is optimistic that as more white parents visit the center, they will spread the word of the positive value it offers all children.
Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net
If you go
What: Booker T. Washington Community Center's 80th anniversary Celebration Weekend
When: Dinner and dance is 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9; gospel concert is 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 11
Where: BTW Community Center, 23 Chapman Ave., Auburn
Cost: Dinner is $25 and the gospel concert is free
For details: Call 253-3207
Over the course of that weekend, the center will honor the contributions of the men and women who worked to shape the lives of every child who spent an after-school afternoon within its walls since 1927.
After the Friday night dinner, a wall of fame featuring accomplished African-Americans like Mohammed Ali and Sojourner Truth will be rededicated as a Booker T. Washington wall of fame.
The new wall in the main lobby of the center will include Collins Hinton, who helped secure funding for the construction of the current center building as chairman of the board in the 1970s. Fellow inductee Allen McLeod was executive director when that building was completed in 1981.
Other past directors who will be honored are Fred Richardson and Paul Richardson Sr., whom program director Merritt Fletcher counts among his inspirations.
“Whenever I wonder how I should run the center, I just remember what Uncle Paul did, and I expand on those things,” Fletcher said.
The new wall of fame will also feature Joanne Reddick, a former chairman of the board who added several sports to the center's existing selection of football, basketball and baseball.
Fletcher credits former assistant director Hazel Jeffries, another inductee, with expanding the scope of activities at the center to areas outside of sports. She worked with the late William Jackson, a former director and fellow inductee, who was also known as Mr. NAACP. Fletcher feels Jackson helped include the center in the Auburn community “so we weren't just sitting on the side.”
Fletcher added about Jackson, “He had a knack for making people understand that we were people too.”
Inductee Gwen Webber McLeod helped the center reach out to local schools and built the foundation for its after-school programs in Auburn and Moravia. For several years, Gertie Richardson and Justine Copes contributed their time to the center, as a preschool teacher and a volunteer, respectively.
Rounding out the wall of fame roster is Carrie Canady, who oversaw the center's preschool program at its largest size, and Eleanor Hardy, a former executive director who went on to become the city of Auburn's social services supervisor.
The anniversary dinner will also honor the contributions of long-time volunteers Bessie Williams, Mary Robinson and Ella Mae Humphrey, as well as United Way and the Cayuga County Youth Bureau.
Sunday's gospel music concert will feature the choirs of the Roosevelt Memorial Baptist Church, St. Luke's Church in Syracuse, the Apostolic Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and Holy Ghost Deliverance Church.
Every day the Booker T. Washington Community Center hosts about 100 area children, both elementary age and older school students who come to the center through its outreach programs at Auburn and Moravia schools.
For no registration fee, the center offers them tutoring and life skills classes every afternoon, followed by sports and other special activities like visiting seniors at the Mercy Health & Rehabilitation Center or picking apples at nearby orchards.
Executive Director Monique Williams has accessed funds that allow the center to offer area youth special programs at affordable prices, such as a $300 week-long college visit bus trip and a $20 “Amazing Race” scavenger hunt through New York City.
“It's through her drive and her spirit that the center continues to be diversified,” Fletcher said.
The center's SIMUKAI and Black Knights
programs offer adolescent youth educational and volunteer opportunities to advance their passage into adulthood.
Despite the wealth of activities the center offers, Fletcher feels the perception of the center as all-black is still a detriment.
“They think it's a black children's place and there are connotations that come with that, like that their kids might get hurt,” Fletcher said.
The center's race ratio is actually half-white, half-black during the summer and slightly more weighted toward African-American youth during the school year. Fletcher is optimistic that as more white parents visit the center, they will spread the word of the positive value it offers all children.
Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net
If you go
What: Booker T. Washington Community Center's 80th anniversary Celebration Weekend
When: Dinner and dance is 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9; gospel concert is 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 11
Where: BTW Community Center, 23 Chapman Ave., Auburn
Cost: Dinner is $25 and the gospel concert is free
For details: Call 253-3207
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