by David Cruz

For the past 23 years, several phases of Samantha Kogel’s life have played out at a community institution in Norwood. From experiencing the thrill of hitting a ball off a tee at age 5, to hanging with friends at a constructive and fun environment at the teen center, to serving as a guidance counselor at a summer day camp during her later adolescent years, Kogel’s upbringing is partly due to her membership with the social service center.

These days, at age 28, she’s a single mother enrolling her 5-year-old son Tyler at the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, the same haven that gave her a well-rounded education away from school. She’s certainly a product of the center, a fact made evident during a recent board meeting where a longtime director recalled Kogel’s first visit to MMCC.

“She [the director] said, ‘oh my God, I remember when you were five years old and now you have a five-year-old,” said Kogel.

Things have come full circle for Kogel, a Bedford Park resident who intends to continue her participation at the center, having already mulled the premise of becoming a substitute teacher there. She had once served as a member of the parent committee to provide input to MMCC.

“You can start here when you’re five and they have the senior programs,” said Kogel. “So you can stay here until you’re a senior.”

Kogel’s story is one of tens of thousands at MMCC, a nonprofit located at the corner of DeKalb Avenue and East Gun Hill Road. It currently offers a wide range of services that include day care, summer day camp, Head Start, a baseball league and a Pre-K program.

“Wherever we could see the need, whether it comes from people talking to us from me being part of the community, my staff being part of the community, we’ll try to offer it,” said Don Bluestone, MMCC’s executive director.

Bluestone is somewhat of an ad hoc historian for the center, recalling MMCC’s early years when it opened in 1942 amid the turmoil of WWII. As men served their country overseas, a group of eight women in the once Jewish neighborhood sought to provide child care, teen and senior services for the neighborhood.

But space was limited. “From 1942 to 1958, they basically used every little space they could find to provide programs,” said Bluestone. “A lot of programs were in basements in various apartment buildings.”

Eventually, a 30,000-square-foot home was built on DeKalb Avenue and East Gun Hill Road, thanks

in large part to Montefiore Medical Center which leased the land to MMCC. The philosophy worked to create stability in Norwood, which warded off any permanent quality of life concerns in the neighborhood. The center has since expanded to 20 schools and several other building sites.

Bluestone has managed the center for 25 years, back then known as the Mosholu Neighborhood Center. The center worked like that of a club, with residents paying a fee to take part in the programming. The largely Jewish community gradually shifted with a wave of Puerto Rican and African-American families settling in.

“As it changed, we developed our programs to really meet the needs of the changing community,” said Bluestone. Much of the help came from a changing federal government, which passed the Title 20 law that helped subsidize day care services and free meals for seniors. Head Start programs and a little league were later instituted at MMCC to cover the needs of the community.

The center has also dabbled in physical fitness, having partnered with Montefiore to help obese teenagers who resisted help.

“What we did together with them is we started to provide recreational services for them,” said Bluestone. “The kids are definitely feeling a lot better as human beings.”

Momentum has built as MMCC gears up for the fall season, having expanded its universal pre-K program, thanks to the De Blasio Administration.