WNY Women:
Click here to read about more WNY womenBrenda Williams McDuffie
Work & service that’s right for her
By Donna Evans
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“Spirituality lends both support and confirmation,” she says. “We all need to know that the work and service we are doing is right for us.”
McDuffie starts her days at 7 a.m. with a prayer service at the Elim Christian Fellowship, where she and her family have found more than just a place to worship.
“We also fellowship there. As a family, a lot of relationships and friendships have evolved out of our growing and maturing with the church,” she said.
Her family, of course, makes up the first circle of supporters when it comes to the people in her life. McDuffie and her husband Gerald have three children, an adult daughter and two teenagers. Gerald, she says, is an exceptional person who recognizes that children are a shared responsibility and who has helped her sustain her career and family life.
“When I need to get away from work, it’s my family who calls on the phone and gets me out to a prayer service,” she said. “I’m very glad my spiritual life is there because it helps me maintain balance.”
It’s not unusual for McDuffie and many of her staff members to put in twelve or sixteen-hour days, seven days a week. But, she says, her work at the Urban League is a labor of love. Plus, she enjoys the people who surround her at work.
“You do need time away to keep fresh and I realize my staff members need time with their families,” she said. “That is a big part of what the Urban League is about — strengthening families.”
The goals of the Urban League are to play a major role in rebuilding the entire community and to ensure that African-Americans, minorities and disadvantaged individuals have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. It is accomplishing these goals in very concrete ways — providing childcare and education, teaching parenting and life skills, job training, and assisting members of the community in finding suitable housing.
“It’s really a community rebuilding process, and we don’t do it alone. Our efforts and successes are part of the community’s efforts and successes,” McDuffie said. The Urban League works in collaboration with other community organizations such as Consumer Credit Counseling, the Buffalo Federation of Neighborhood Centers, and Roswell Park Memorial Institute.
In addition to working with other non-profit agencies, McDuffie is on the boards of the Western New York Foundation, SUC at Buffalo, the Greater Buffalo Savings Bank, Buffalo Niagara Convention and Visitors’ Center and is on the Trustee Council for Kaleida Health System. She definitely has her finger on the pulse of the region, and what Western New York needs most, in her view, is hope for the future.
“The economy has been in a downward spiral for a long time — which makes it a particular challenge to revitalize—but the potential is there,” she said. We have the people and the natural resources to turn this area around, McDuffie says. A key component, however, is a policy of inclusion for women and minorities.
“We need to embrace a new mindset. There have been traditional ways of doing business and making decisions that need to be changed. We have to ask the business community, ‘Can you reach out to women and people of color?’”
With the market so tight, this has been difficult to accomplish, as McDuffie says, “It’s only through expansion and growth that you can bring in new players.” She does, however, see hope in some of the new projects the city is undertaking, in particular the rebuilding of city schools.
“That project (the $970 million project to refurbish and update city school buildings over the next 10 years) has something that many others haven’t had—it’s longevity,” she said. “And there’s a policy of inclusion which is critical — it will make a world of difference.”
The city has recognized that there are large pockets of individuals who have been left out of community projects in the past. This time around, it has set goals to make sure businesses owned by women and minorities have the opportunity to participate.
“It will take more time, but I applaud the effort to have inclusion,” McDuffie said. Improving the schools, she added will impact every neighborhood in the city over the next ten years, “the synergy will be tremendous.”
Past projects like the HSBC Arena, haven’t invited the participation of minorities either during construction or after. But new projects, such as the expansions of the University at Buffalo and Canisius College are inclusive and will stimulate excitement and positive energy in the community.
“The greatest thing this city has is its people. How we include people in the life of the community will have a lot to do with how the city fares in the future,” McDuffie said.
A transplant who came to Buffalo from Brooklyn thirty years ago, McDuffie said she feels privileged to have become such an integral part of the effort to rebuild this city.
“It’s a blessing for me to be here and to be involved.”
Donna Evans is a writer and public relations specialist based in Western New York.
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