Many of today’s GCC program offerings can be traced to the past

By August Halbach, GCC digital marketing specialist

Looking at Goodman Community Center’s current programming list, it’s easy to see how a center with two buildings, over 100 staff and 70 years of history can have such a wide range of offerings. A look into the center’s history, however, offers an impressive new outlook. Many of today’s programs, while improved and expanded, have existed in some form for decades — even back when Goodman was Atwood Community Center.

Deborah Percival and Ed Blume worked at Atwood Community Center, Goodman’s direct predecessor and legacy holder, between 1976 and 1979, collectively. Blume was acting director from ’76-’77 and Percival would be comparable to a modern-day program director. However, comparing the workforce of the Goodman Community Center to Atwood at that time requires a large stretch of the imagination.

“Almost every program was run by a volunteer,” Percival said.

Including Blume and Percival, six paid staff were responsible for running the neighborhood center and its programs.

“There was a while where we didn’t have a custodian,” Blume added.

During that time, staff and volunteers were also expected to help keep ACC clean. Still, the people behind the scenes at the center were able to maintain existing programming and create new ones based on community need.

Thanks to Percival’s rich collection of Atwood’s Alive! — Atwood Community Center’s printed newsletter of the era and predecessor to Eastside News — we know that Atwood was successfully able to conduct children, teen, older adult, parent-learning and even cross generational programming during the late 1970s.

The programming was unique to the era, but reflect that the same needs still exist today. In her recollection of the time, Percival was especially proud of the men’s breakfast club, a space for older men — mostly widowers — to socialize and learn things like cooking, sewing and other skills the men typically relied on their wives to perform.

Each issue of Atwood’s Alive!, published every two months or quarter depending on staff capacity, laid out ACC’s programming and included news from the Atwood Neighborhood Association and other neighborhood associations as they formed during this time.

“(Atwood’s Alive!) was how we got people in the doors (at ACC),” Percival explained. “I gave it to everyone in the neighborhood.”

Percival didn’t just go door-to-door to deliver copies of Atwood’s Alive! Her conversations with neighborhood residents was how programming ideas and needs came to fruition. Percival’s education in Saul D. Alinsky’s model for community organizing taught her that it’s the people who live in a community who will know what that community needs and how best to achieve the goal.

Her tenacity and natural ability to organize made her perfect for the low-staffed ACC.

“When a new program was needed, I usually asked someone I knew who could do that skill,” Percival said. “I badgered (them) until they did it. I’m a bit of a badgerer.”

When asked if they ever thought ACC would grow to the scope and size Goodman Community Center is today, both organizers shook their heads.

“It’s amazing what Goodman has become,” Blume said. “It’s beyond our wildest dreams.”