Mid-Utica Neighborhood Preservation Corporation Announces Creation of Executive Director Position

 

MUNPC, commonly referred to as Leisure Time Activity Center, offers adult social programming, physical fitness and bible studies through its Bessie Hicks Senior Program, and coordinates Utica’s annual Juneteenth celebration, as it will again this weekend. Throughout its long history, MUNPC has provided community gathering spaces, early childhood education, and youth day care services.

 

MUNPC is an important partner, as well as the landowner, for the future site of the West Street Impact Center and the transformative Cornhill Revitalization Initiative. Recognizing a need to bring additional support, structure, and build capacity for the future, the Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties awarded MUNPC a 5-year, $300,000 grant for capacity building and to hire the organization’s first Executive Director in the last two decades.

 

The search for a new Executive Director, which will officially launch at Utica’s Juneteenth celebration this weekend at Proctor Park, will be jointly led by MUNPC and the Community Foundation. The Executive Director’s primary responsibilities will include strategic planning and governance, refining the organization’s mission, priority programming, fundraising and development.

 

“Our mission is to serve Utica’s community needs and it is clear that we must evolve as an organization to provide the space and services our community needs,” said MUNPC Board Chair Hilda M. Jordan. “We feel blessed and empowered that the Community Foundation has invested into our community and the structural evolution of our organization to reach our full potential and sustainably thrive.”

 

The Community Foundation, MUNPC, People First, The Collective Impact Network, and the City of Utica will invest more than $77 million in the Cornhill Revitalization Initiative over the next 30 years, including the West Street and James Street Impact Centers, which will serve as anchors for this community transformation.

 

“The Cornhill Revitalization Initiative requires our community partners to be true champions of change, and we know we have that in MUNPC,” said Alicia Fernandez Dicks, Community Foundation President/CEO. “MUNPC has been an important part of this community’s past, and we’re excited to support the role they will play in its future.”