Upstate Institute News and Announcements

MUCC does the important work of providing a long-lasting support system for this community by running an inclusive, multicultural, and refugee-friendly community center. They run various after-school programs, film-making, and college readiness workshops, as well as English-as-a-second-language and citizenship classes.

The Hamilton Healthy Food Connections voucher program provides pathways for financially-struggling households in the county to meet their basic needs by engaging in the social safety net of Hamilton County. During my time at BMC, I have assisted in the process of shipping 125 booklets, each containing $100 worth of vouchers, to the program’s community partners which are then distributed to individuals and families who struggle to afford fresh, healthy food so they can redeem the vouchers at their nearest farmers market and get the food they need.

Over the past few weeks, I have had the privilege of working with the nonprofit organization AdkAction through the Upstate Institute Field School.

I was placed with a refugee resettlement organization called The Center, a Utica-based nonprofit, and have had the opportunity to engage in work experience that has been invaluable to both me and the community.

This year, students in Colgate’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program returned $1.47 million to residents living in Madison and Chenango counties. The program began in 2004 and has been led by Nicole Simpson, W. Bradford Wiley Professor of international economics. It is funded by the University’s Upstate Institute and NBT Bank.

Matthew McGeary ’24 is one of Upstate Institute’s Summer Field School Fellows working with Rogers Environmental Education Center’s “B-Team” on the project, and is seeking the public’s help to document the status of the area’s native bees.

My goal this summer was to evaluate improvement options and to research possible grants and other funding opportunities for The Bell Tree to utilize in order to further renovate the church in sustainable ways. I began researching local organizations that experienced the same struggles as The Bell Tree in terms of retrofitting their old buildings.

My project for the county historian is to research local primary documents and figures connected to subjects found within the New York State Social Studies Curriculum.

I am working on a new research project titled “Uncovering the Hidden Stories of Migrant Labor Camps Along the Chenango River Valley.”

The main goal of this project is to collect basic information from a behavioral standpoint from families in Madison County.