Volunteer Reflections
Why not Buffalo - by Bryan
Before coming to Buffalo and doing my year of service, I got a lot of strange looks. "Why would you want to go to Buffalo, it snows a lot and there is a ton of poverty and problems." Answering one part of that question was not too hard, as I wanted to work with the poor, which led me to my year of service. It was not until I visited Buffalo and then came to live here that I could answer the rest of the question. Yes, Buffalo does have a lot of problems. The politics are a mess, over 50,000 people have left the city in the last 10-15 years, there are drug and violent crime problems, the poverty rate is above 30%, the city is still very segregated, and there is a definite lack of jobs.
What people do not see, however, is that for all of these problems is how great this city is! For one, there is a ton of free stuff to do here. There are free concerts in the square with national acts every Thursday, there are festivals almost every weekend, it's pretty nice when you are living in poverty for the year. Since 50,000 people did leave the city, traffic is not bad at all! You can be downtown from the north side, where we live in 15 minutes. Mass transportation is also quite easy to use and Buffalo does have a subway, although curiously, it only travels down one street. At least part of it is free though, that is nice! Probably the greatest advantage Buffalo has is its close proximity to Canada. You can literally leave our house in Black Rock and be in Canada in less than 15 minutes. Hmmm, note to self that may come in handy if I fracture a few laws, just kidding! There are a lot of great bars here, especially on Chippewa Street, which coincidently I work next to! If you doubt the greatness of the Chippewa Entertainment District, please listen to Big and Rich's song "Coming to Your City," as they reference it. The live music scene is also great in Buffalo. There are tons of places to catch bands during the week, and on the weekends. In fact, there is a pretty good rock concert location less than a block down the street from our house.
Since the Queen City is quite old, there is a lot of amazing architecture. In fact, there are multiple Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the city, and area. Buffalo is also one of the most important arts centers in the Northeast. The theatre district is absolutely thriving and there are a lot of art galleries in the city. In fact, two of the best are within eight blocks of the CCSC house. The waterfront is really nice and will hopefully be further developed over the next couple of years.
One of the great things about Buffalo is how nice the people are. Although over 250,000 people live here, people still say hi to you on the street. In fact, Wegmans, one of the grocery chains here, is often voted the best, or second best place in America to work partly because of how nice and happy its employees are. Our neighbors are also super nice and I am looking forward to hanging out with them again this summer.
So there you have it folks, when hearing people bash Buffalo, compare what I said to what they are saying. I hope you will see the positives and say when people question your desire to come, "Why not Buffalo?!"