Good Neighbors

“Walking the path with our neighbors” is how Sandra Soroka describes the work of the Neighborhood Center. And there are as many paths and ways of walking with neighbors as there are facets to this longtime community gem in Utica, New York.Over the past year, the center struggled to keep essential activities open for families, children and people in need. The center’s leaders, particularly Soroka, the executive director, were guided as always by the center’s original mission: to support folks with mental health issues, children in need of care and new immigrants settling in to a new neighborhood and culture.For years, Utica, a hardscrabble town on the Erie Canal, once a stop on the manufacturing corridor, has seen a decline in population. Until recently, the overall population was decreasing by about one percent a year. Located between Syracuse and Albany, Utica residents are hoping for a renaissance through the public-private “Nano Utica” initiative, making the region a hub for nanotechnology. The pandemic slowed this progress.Growth has occurred incrementally with the arrival of new citizens. The region has been a destination for new Americans originally born in Russia, Bosnia, Burma and Somalia. Around 19 percent of the approximately 60,000 Utica residents were born in a different country.Thanks to the resettlement of refugees, the area has become increasingly multicultural. In one recent swearing-in ceremony, 30 refugees from 15 countries became U.S. citizens in Utica. Economically, the median income has risen slightly to $35,394, and the poverty rate remains a stubborn 30 percent. The neighbors who are struggling with poverty, young children and mental health are the families that the Neighborhood Center, a United Methodist Women-supported national mission institution, has always served.Visit https://www.unitedmethodistwomen.org/news/good-neighbors to read this article on our website.