Mary Lou Sayles isn\u2019t the kind of executive director to lock herself away in her office and busy herself with paperwork while people need help outside her door.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a firm believer [in the idea that if] you help one person, that\u2019s a good day,\u201d said Sayles, who heads up the Huntington Family Center. \u201cSometimes I go home thinking, \u2018Wow, I didn\u2019t get anything on my list done, but I filled four pantry bags.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s the purpose at Huntington \u2014 it\u2019s the people, not the paperwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel pretty strongly about making a difference on the ground,\u201d she said. \u201cI step in if we need help anywhere. It’s the kind of leader I wanted to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sayles, who has a master\u2019s degree in social work and a long career in the nonprofit sector, took the helm at Huntington Family Center eight years ago. But her biggest struggle is getting the word out about the organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am sad at the number of people who don’t know what Huntington is,\u201d Sayles said. \u201cHow do we get that word out? How do we get people to know us and visit?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The settlement house tradition<\/p>\n
Sayles said the organization\u2019s board has tried a number of things over the years to try to increase its visibility, including changing the name. But there\u2019s a lot of history behind the Huntington name.<\/p>\n
Huntington was founded as a settlement house 100 years ago. Settlement houses grew out of the Progressive Era\u2019s efforts to confront issues like chronic poverty, overcrowded tenements, child labor, industrial accidents, and public health. Settlement houses served as a place where young people, particularly women, intent on reform would gather to share ideas and ultimately put in motion the wheels of change.<\/p>\n
Huntington Family Center was founded as part of that tradition in May of 1919. Then known as the Huntington Club, its original goal was to help the growing numbers of women who had moved to Syracuse looking for factory work while their husbands were fighting in World War I.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuntington Family Center is one of the first, if not the first, settlement house in Syracuse,\u201d Sayles said. \u201dWe are neck and neck with the Dunbar Center. We’re both celebrating 100 years this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The center has moved a few times over the years, but ultimately landed at its current location at 405 Gifford St. on the city\u2019s Near West Side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole purpose is to be in a neighborhood that was struggling with poverty and to provide a one-stop shop for social services,\u201d Sayles said. \u201cThat’s what the settlement house tradition really means.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A place of hope<\/p>\n
And Huntington Family Center lives up to that tradition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I say one-stop shop, I mean really, from birth to aging,\u201d Sayles said. \u201cHuntington provides universal pre-K, toddler and 3-year-old programming, afterschool program for youth and teens, support programs for parents with disabilities and parents [of] children with disabilities, supervised visitation program for parents\u2026 and a robust senior services program. And then, we have a basic needs program, so we do free food through the food pantry and free clothing, right here on this corner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sayles said Huntington meets a critical need in communities like the Near West Side, which has one of the highest concentrations of poverty in the country. Median income in this area according to the U.S. Census is $22,567; the poverty line in the U.S. is $25,750 for a family of four. While median home value in Onondaga County is $142,000, on the Near West Side, it\u2019s $63,300.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are one of the neighborhoods that they are talking about in all of their articles [on concentrated poverty],\u201d Sayles said. \u201cThat is still unfortunately what we see here.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the agency\u2019s programs help, they\u2019re not always enough to address the generational poverty that has plagued the neighborhood for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have folks who live here as adults, who come and use the food pantry, who come for the parenting program, who came as children,\u201d Sayles said. \u201cThe need continues to be great.\u201d<\/p>\n
The upside of that relationship is that the residents of the community know the staff at Huntington does care about them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact is they may not ever have had experience trusting an agency or a social service setting, and maybe that helps them if they trust us, then they would be open to the next service, that then hopefully puts them on a path to be better positioned maybe for the next opportunity,\u201d Sayles said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Stoking passion<\/p>\n
Huntington, too, must always be open to new opportunities. As funding streams dry up, Sayles said she\u2019s had to get creative to keep Huntington thriving.<\/p>\n
While the bulk of the center\u2019s funding comes from several United Way grants and a portion of the remainder comes from the county and the state, Sayles has also started clinical programs for youth and families in Oswego, Cayuga and Delaware counties that helps support programs in Syracuse. For a while the center also operated an on-site caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver time, the agency tried a couple of different things,\u201d she said. \u201c\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you are not nimble, and you don’t provide opportunities to bring in other kinds of revenue, it is really impossible to manage the day-to-day needs of a community neighborhood center.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other critical piece to keeping the center running, Sayles said, is making sure the staff is happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order for your agency to thrive, your staff has to thrive,\u201d Sayles said. \u201cThey have to feel like they’re valued, that they matter, that you listen to them, and that you have their back. I don’t know how you can demonstrate clients matter if you can’t demonstrate that your staff matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of the staff comes from the neighborhood, so they, too, have a vested interest in doing what\u2019s best for the community. They all share the same passion Sayles has for the agency\u2019s mission. Sayles said she hopes that passion endures after she eventually retires.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want it to go past me,\u201d she said. \u201cI am so proud that this agency is 100 years old\u2026 The key is I’m passionate about it. I think in order to get more donor revenue or fundraising revenue is that level of passion. That’s my challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mary Lou Sayles isn\u2019t the kind of executive director to lock herself away in her office and busy herself with paperwork while people need help outside her door. \u201cI am a firm believer [in the idea that if] you help one person, that\u2019s a good day,\u201d said Sayles, who heads up the Huntington Family Center.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,99],"tags":[1010,1009,1011,421],"class_list":["post-2684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-causes","category-featured","tag-huntington-family-center","tag-mary-lou-sayles","tag-settlement-house","tag-the-philanthropy-edition"],"gutentor_comment":1,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/1568755110-529064-fullsizeoutput-10b61.jpeg?fit=5504%2C8256&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2645,"url":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?p=2645","url_meta":{"origin":2684,"position":0},"title":"LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: In November, we write about philanthropy","author":"Sarah Hall","date":"October 31, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Philanthropy in its most basic definition means \u201clove of humanity.\u201d I like to believe that people are basically good \u2014 that we all start out with the best of intentions, full of that love of humanity. 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