Donna Nichols is the Executive Director of the Moreau Community Center, which is located at 144 Main Street in South Glens Falls, and housed in a building that had previously been a church. The mission of the Moreau Community Center is to meet the intergenerational needs of the community in a compassionate and inclusive environment. The community center has food services available, educational support, and the opportunity for social engagement for both families and individuals. The Moreau Community Center prides itself on being a place that is inclusive, welcoming, and respectful of the inherent dignity of all people.

Founded in 1977, the community center provides numerous valuable programs… To support these programs, they have recently updated the kitchen facility. This upgrade helps to support programs including their “Bulldog Zone Teen Center”, which runs on Tuesdays from 2:15 PM to 6:00 PM. The upgrade to the kitchen facility helps the center feed over 100 kids that come to attend the teen center.  

Donna Nichols has been pleased with the attendance each week for the teen center: “This last Tuesday, we had 105 kids come to the teen center. And they love it! We provide arts and crafts, sports, foosball… And we spend time with the kids and work on their communication skills. These kids really need this program,” she said.

Donna has noticed the change in the kids having access to fresh cooked food that they serve since they upgraded the kitchen: “We used to order pizza for the kids and they would mill around and grab a piece here and there, but now that we are working together with the kids and they are cooking for each other, it makes a big difference.  They line up at meal time and are excited for what they are going to eat,” she said.

Moreau Community Center uses every available inch of their facility – when The Teen Center was founded in September of 2021, they renovated an under-utilized area in the community center and created “The Bulldog Zone” which has beanbag chairs, games, and the kids’ artwork hanging on the walls. “They come into this space and decompress,” Donna said. “Sometimes this is the quietest area because they will sit here on their phones… They are still interacting with each other, but it is through technology.”

To run the Teen Center it takes a dedicated staff and volunteers: “Between the staff and volunteers, there are usually about eight adults running the program for the kids. This supervision and structure helps the kids… That is often something that they may be lacking at home.”

Because of the popularity of the program, the Moreau Community Center is looking for a way to expand: “We have about 100 kids every Tuesday from about 2:15 to 6:00… There are some kids that would like to stay longer if they could. So, we need to expand the infrastructure and grow the program… The kids love being here. The whole building is full of music, and it is loud and exhausting, and we love it!”

The community center works to provide services for all members of the community, and has recently been able to expand those services due to a grant that they received from Spectrum – specifically, the Spectrum Community Center Assist Program, a philanthropic program that aims to improve conditions in community centers and create job skills programs.

The Moreau Community Center has been able to increase the services that they provide due to a grant that they received through this grant program: “We applied for and received a grant that provides $50,000 a year for five years for us to provide skills for life and work… This grant has enabled me to hire an employment coordinator. The coordinator helps individuals with their resumes, customer service training, and other services that someone may need to enter the workforce,” Donna said.  The mission of this program is to provide professional, reliable and impactful life skills and career search training, and connect individuals with potential employers. Moreau Community Center, through this grant from Spectrum, provides access to a free laptop for job searches, life-resource services, assistance with forms and documentation, and access to job board postings. 

Amongst the other services that the Moreau Community Center provides is an emergency-use food pantry, which feeds over 90 people a month – people who are in need of the food pantry come in and fill out an application and choice form… The choice form is provided so that the individuals can choose what they need. Then, the program provides 3 or 4 days of food and personal care products to the individual a month!

The Community Center also provides food for school-aged children through the backpack program – every Friday, food comes up from the regional food bank in Latham, and staff and volunteers help load the bags with food, which are distributed to four area elementary schools. The Community Center reaches out to disabled adults who are invited to come from CWI Community Work & Independence Inc. and volunteer. This program provides food for the weekend for 120 kids who have food insecurity at home.

With all the good work that they do at the community center, they also mix in some fun – in the attic of the community center, there is a thrift store called “Boutique”.  People donate their gently-used items, and this is an area that the kids love to spend time at during teen center – they can go up to the thrift store and buy a shirt for a dollar. They have all kinds of donated clothing and accessories that the kids especially love. 

There is a space next to the thrift store “Boutique” where ECS Psychological Services has a satellite office; there is a staff member on site one afternoon and evening each week, to provide counseling and therapy services. Donna emphasized that there is a need for accessible counseling in the area.  

“We use every inch of this building, this is what we have and we make it work for us,” Donna said.

For more information about the Moreau Community Center, please visit moreaucommunitycenter.org

Wayne Wright is somewhat of a fixture at City Hall… He has been the historian for the City of Glens Falls since November of 1999, and has worked for the city since 1980. As the City Historian for the last 24 years, Wayne has been responsible for receiving and maintaining archival records relating to the city’s history, answering historical and genealogical requests, and other research. He prepares and maintains historical displays relating to the city, and he is also a member of the Glens Falls Cemetery Commission and works on improving all documentation needed to maintain burial records and the history of the cemetery. 

Wayne is originally from Hudson Falls, but when he came to work for the city in 1980, Glens Falls became his home… He started out working for the city doing maintenance work, taking care of Glens Falls City parks and the city properties downtown. From 1980 to 1988, he would pack boxes for different departments for the city… During this time, it became apparent that Wayne had an interest in keeping and maintaining records, so Wayne stepped away from working at City Hall in 1988 to pursue his education – he took classes at Adirondack Community College (now SUNY Adirondack), where he earned an Associate’s Degree in Tourism and History, and in 1991, Glens Falls received a State Archives grant: “I was hired back to work through that grant. I was working under the grant and writing the grants. The money from the grants would be given out once a year to the agencies that apply for the funds,” Wayne said. He did this for several years and found the work to be fulfilling: “It was a lot of fun, to read the grants and see where the money was going… About half of the grants that are applied for would get funding,”  he said.

Wayne has an indelible love for the history of Glens Falls, and he has spent his career making the most of every opportunity that was given to him: “I started out taking care of city parks and city property downtown… I did maintenance work year round. I pushed snow around. In 1995, the woman that worked as a clerk retired… At that time, it was getting harder and harder to fill salaries, so they made me a full time clerk and I worked in the City Clerk’s Office, everything I picked up along the way I kept.” he said, demonstrating a characteristic of a true historian. 

Wayne enjoys his work as the City Historian, and believes that his love of history comes from his parents: “I grew up in a household where we all had an interest in history… My parents were interested in history, so this has always fit,” he said.

Wayne sees the importance of filling out the history of Glens Falls; he creates files where there have been none, and sorts through all of the items that people donate. “People donate pictures and items and I take care of those items. I have created displays for the second floor, and helped with family trees,  I help people with their genealogy… And I answer local questions about peoples’ houses. People move here and they want to feel like they are a part of the city. They want to know who owned the house before them and when it was built… If I can find that information for them, they are very appreciative,” Wayne said.

Wayne would love to have more information about the houses in Glens Falls and the families that have lived in them: “The houses in the city, no matter what street they are on, as they are bought and sold, the new people want to know about the history of the houses… And the history of the families that have lived there. If anyone has that information, I would love to make a copy of that,” he said. 

Wayne finds that technology has helped to make his job a lot easier, although he appreciates how much information was cataloged and maintained prior to use of computers and the internet: “You can get so much information from the old newspapers. The pictures and the articles bring the stories alive… I believe in images. Images expand the whole experience for people who are researching their family and family history,” Wayne said.  

With the evolution of technology and his limited time in the office, Wayne mostly receives requests via email, and suggests that people use community resources that are in Glens Falls: “Now, since I work two days a week, people email me their requests… There are great resources in the community. The Folklore Center in Crandall Library has so much information, and they are very friendly and helpful. The Chapman Museum can be a great resource for people looking for more information about the area, as is the cemetery – there are more that 15,000 graves in the Glens Falls Cemetery on Bay Street, and it’s still an active cemetery. There are 70 to 80 burials a year,” Wayne said.

In his free time, Wayne surrounds himself with his extensive family of kids and grandkids, and spends time with his wife of 33 years, and he is also a published author, having written the book “Listening In: Memories of Glens Falls 1755-1931”. A grant was used to pay for the publishing of this book, so all the money that is made from the book is spent on history projects.

If anyone would like to donate memorabilia or historical items to the city, or would like a copy of Wayne’s book, please contact Wayne Wright at historian@cityofglensfalls.com, or call (518) 761-3871.