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Troy Community Center up for sale due to lack of volunteers
Posted at: 10/08/2012 4:33 PM
| Updated at: 10/08/2012 6:04 PM
By: John McLoughlin
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TROY - On Monday’s official celebration of Columbus Day, the news out of one Italian-American neighborhood in the Capital Region, is not all that celebratory.
The Italian American Community Center is right in the heart of Troy's "Little Italy," a neighborhood of about 20 square blocks.
Now, the Community Center is up for sale, and some say not enough younger members are interested in keeping the place alive.
It costs almost $30,000 a year just to heat the huge complex, but money is not the big issue.
Getting people to volunteer to put on the many events is the main problem.
The president of the non-profit center, which has been around for most of a century says membership has dropped in recent years, from 350 down to 240.
He says fewer than 50 of the members are either willing or able to volunteer their time, and volunteers are needed for the bingo's, the free soup kitchen, and the weekly dinners that are key to the center's survival.
About a decade ago, then senator Hillary Clinton helped the people of this community launch an effort to identify this are as "Little Italy" and the folks who spearheaded that "Little Italy" movement say this could be a huge blow, if the Community Center moves out.
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