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While the recent economic recession spells some difficult decisions for Vassar, some nonprofit agencies in Poughkeepsie are feeling the pinch in a much more immediate way, facing budget cuts even as the need for their services are on the rise. As more and more Poughkeepsie residents turn to the community’s nonprofit human service agencies for assistance, the work of Vassar’s community service workers has become even more of an important and invaluable asset.
The Family Partnership Center (FPC) building on North Hamilton Street in Poughkeepsie acts as a hub for many of Poughkeepsie’s social and human service agencies, housing everything from after-school programs and legal services to a soup kitchen, all under one roof. As such, it is a major point of contact between Vassar and Poughkeepsie, as well as an epicenter of the recession’s impact on the community.
FPC President Joe D’Ambrosio explained that the Center is organized “kind of like the United Nations.” The 28 different organizations that work out of the Center form a cohesive unit whose nonprofits interact and help each other serve the community. D’Ambrosio emphasized the need to keep Vassar’s connection with the organizations strong as non-profits buckle up during the recession, stating, “We need Vassar to continue their relationship with us and these agencies because the expertise, the energy that Vassar students provide, basically provides us with in-kind services that would basically cost us a staff person.”
One of the FPC’s 28 organizations is Protect the Dream Youth Program, where many Vassar students participate in an after-school program as part of their work-study employment, for field work credit or as volunteers. Melanie Rosenberger ’11, who works as a coordinator for Protect the Dream Youth Program, is worried about the status of some of the students who make use of the organization’s after-school program, which offers a safe space, homework help and meals for Poughkeepsie youths.
Since the beginning of the calendar year, Rosenberger has noticed a trend where “some of the older [Poughkeepsie] students aren’t coming so much anymore because they are staying home to take care of their younger siblings, because their parents have taken up a second job.” Also, according to Rosenberger, some of Protect the Dream’s non-student volunteers must now balance their nonprofit work with extra time they have had to pick up at their regular jobs.
FPC agencies that respond to the needs of those experiencing economic difficulties, such as Dutchess Outreach, have been hit twice as hard by the recession, in that they are experiencing not only decreases in funding but also an increase in demand for their services. According to Hunger Action co-Chair Rachel Glicksman ’09, “They’re under more pressure to give out food, but also they have a tighter budget themselves. They just have so much more demand.”
This sentiment was echoed by Kyle Canton ’09, a three-year volunteer at Dutchess Outreach under the auspices of Vassar’s Community Service Work Study program. Canton has noticed a diversification of Dutchess Outreach’s client base across the socioeconomic spectrum.
“There is a much bigger influx of people looking for rent or mortgage assistance who fall well above the Social Services-dictated ‘safety net’-level of income,” a trend that reflects the recession’s broadening effects on the middle class, said Canton.
There is perhaps no more apparent sign of the recession’s effects on Poughkeepsie’s middle class than the recent closing of the Poughkeepsie YMCA, a former partner for Vassar’s field work, community fellows and community service work study programs. Director of Fieldwork Peter Leonard remarked, “It is conspicuous to people because it’s an American tradition for a town to have a YMCA; it shows the middle class is really taking a hit.”
And while the biggest tragedy of the closing of the YMCA is the disruption of the social services that it provided, such as affordable exercise facilities and dependable after-school programs, there are direct implications for the Vassar community, as well. “The financial crisis in Poughkeepsie’s human services organizations is also an educational crisis for Vassar,” said Leonard.
According to Leonard, at least 70 percent of Vassar students graduate having done field work, with an overwhelming majority of students working at one of Poughkeepsie’s human services organizations. When one of the organizations folds, the services it provides are lost, but educational opportunities for Vassar students are lost, too.
However, students like Rosenberger see hope in the rising number of students who are interested in community work, with a rise from seven Vassar students at Protect the Dream last year to 21 this year. “People definitely want to get out there and volunteer,” said Rosenberger. As the recession has left gaps in the services that non-profits can provide, Vassar students have risen to the occasion and filled those gaps.
D’Ambrosio, who is also a Professor of Public Management at Marist College, said, “I can speak for the partner organizations when I say that we greatly appreciate the Vassar students as a whole. We need them now. We’re integrated into this model, so if their help was to go away, it would affect the learning experience; it would affect thousands of people.”
Sarah Weston ’07, Coordinator of the Community Service Work Study program, which places 59 students with 23 community partners nonprofits where they work for Federal Work-Study, remarked that, “So many of the agencies have lost funding and are just struggling with resources and with personnel. So it’s been pretty incredible to send Vassar students to work eight to 10 hours a week in some of these agencies...in programs that they might not have been able to fund or do without the students.”
Jennifer Wilson-Cohen ’09 is one student whose presence has kept a program from disappearing. When the Dutchess County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ (SPCA) budget cuts meant that the agency was unable to keep two of its employees, the SPCA’s ‘Shelter Scholars’ program to ready dogs for adoption fell entirely under Wilson-Cohen’s direction. While this may work for now, Wilson-Cohen is worried by the realization that “When I graduate, they don’t have anyone else.”
The recession’s effects have also been felt by students such as Community Action Coordinator Eva Grenier ’09, who works on several prison re-entry and mental health projects and hopes to remain working in human services in Poughkeepsie after graduation.
“I really want to work in Poughkeepsie next year,” said Grenier, “but I doubt there will be any jobs in terms of human services.” Instead of seeking paid employment, she has begun applying for grants and fellowships that would allow her to continue her work without receiving a salary that would deduct from the dwindling budget of a nonprofit agency.
All those involved stressed that Vassar’s involvement in the community during the recession shouldn’t represent a one-time investment in town-gown relations. Nonprofits traditionally work on the fringes of the economy, relying on grants and local government funding for their day-to-day operations. And in this sense, they are somewhat shielded from the same market forces that would affect large corporations such as Lehman Brothers or Circuit City.
Organizations like Green Teen and Dutchess Outreach, which have had their funding cut by United Way, have succeeded in remaining adaptable and finding alternative sources of funding to stay afloat. Additionally, many community resources, such as Protect the Dream’s after-school program, are grassroots and volunteer-based and, as such, require very little outside funding at all. But this is not always the case, and some organizations—as evidenced by the closing of the YMCA—are facing a real threat to their ability to serve the community. “Non-profits always operate on the margins,” said D’Ambrosio. “That plus this recession makes it real tough.”
Zara Cadoux ’09, a Community Action Coordinator, said, “My hope, long-term, is that Vassar really becomes a part of the Poughkeepsie community and it’s not like there’s this separation, but also in times like this recession that Vassar students realize that our volunteer hours are really, really important to keeping these organizations going.”
In order to help keep the FPC in operation, a number of students are planning a benefit dinner for it later this spring. Community Action Coordinator Willa Conway ’10 said, “It is losing a lot of funding due to the economic crisis, and we all thought we could rally behind them, as it is a space that serves many different people and supports different needs in the community.”
Conway continued, “The city would be deeply, deeply affected by the decline of the FPC, so I think it is our responsibility as students to get involved through service.”
Like many Vassar students who work in the community, Conway encouraged others to consider it a two-way relationship, and take advantage of the resources that Poughkeepsie has to offer. “We are part of a great community that is very active and fun,” said Conway, “and it just takes a little bit of stepping out of the boundaries of Vassar to see what the community can do for you.”
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