The Chagrin Falls Park Community Center, home to a number of programs benefitting local children, families and senior citizens, has a new director who is…
The Chagrin Falls Park Community Center, home to a number of programs benefitting local children, families and senior citizens, has a new director who is no stranger to the Geauga County area.
Toni Blake — graduate of Notre Dame Cathedral Latin when it was known as Notre Dame Academy — told Bainbridge Township Trustees at their Sept. 14 meeting she hopes to bring fresh ideas and leadership to her new position, but had high praise for her predecessor, DeAnna Tenney, who resigned recently for health reasons.
“DeAnna is doing well and improving day to day,” Blake told trustees. “She comes into my office all the time and is still very passionate about Chagrin Falls Park.”
The community center is part of Ravenna-based Family and Counseling Services, and provides after-school tutoring and athletics for children and teens, a hunger cupboard and furniture distribution program for families in need, and serves as a nutrition and activities site for the Geauga County Department on Aging.
Blake told trustees she is a graduate of Hiram College and has a master’s degree in social work from Case Western Reserve University.
“My passion is youth and those in need,” she said. “Chagrin Falls Park is the most awesome job in the world and everything I went to school for.”
She said the center has many opportunities for volunteers, including the Young Scholars Program, which supervises homework and supplies tutors — mostly retired teachers — to help students succeed in school.
“We also have Strategies for Life, in which people can donate furniture, appliances and other things that people need and can use,” she told trustees. “We also have a food pantry under the auspices of the Cleveland Food Bank, which is run very well and served 528 families last year with a 10-day crisis bag. Some of those may have been repeats.”
Blake added, “I have big hopes and big dreams for Chagrin Falls Park. Our advisory board has openings and needs to grow in numbers. I’d like to do fundraisers.”
She told trustees the community center regularly serves more than 380
families in the Chagrin Falls Park
development and surrounding areas.
When trustees asked her whether she is familiar with the land bank program, in which the township takes ownership of small plots of foreclosed land in Chagrin Falls Park and tries to sell them at a nominal cost to residents, she said she was still learning about it.
“I’ve had a little bit of information on the land bank, but can’t wrap my head around it entirely yet,” Blake told trustees, who admitted it is a complicated program.
Trustees need to sell 71 small parcels scattered throughout the community, each about .06 acres in size, for about $100 per lot. Nine of the parcels must be sold by the end of the year or the township will be required to pay back taxes on them.
“Those parcels have to be sold or transferred by the end of the year,” Trustee Chris Horn said.
Blake said she will help them in any way she can. Trustees welcomed her to the community and said they looked forward to working with her.
