BY MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The AFL-CIO Community Services' has named its new director to take over for current director Penny Adams.
Incoming Director Nichi Seckinger is excited and nervous to take over for the long time director, and while her goals are to continue Adams work, she does have ideas of where she would like to expand.
"I'm hoping to get a little more involved with some civic organizations, we have kind of fallen away from that," Seckinger says. "So I'm hoping that we'll get them not only, well kind of a two fold, one to increase volunteers and also potentially to increase fundraising in the agency."
Seckinger knows she has some big shoes to fill replacing Adams, who was successful in her time as director. While Seckingers biggest goal for the future is to further Adams success, her hope for the future includes funding more programs.
"Right now we have seven programs at the agency, and so unfortunately funding is always an issue for non profits," Seckinger tells St. Joseph Post. "And so, some of those programs have kind of fallen away, we don't have as many materials or supplies to go with those programs, so I'm hoping to increase our resources there."
Seckinger will be named the third director of the agency. One big help for her will be Adams assisting in the transition and passing on her knowledge about the job.
"Having that knowledge, that's not something you can pass onto anybody in just a couple weeks," Seckinger says. "Even if we had six months to play follow through, it would be near impossible for her to teach one person everything that she's done."
Luckily for Seckinger she has been working the job for 12 years and has learned some things by doing them. But she also has an added benefit to learning from Adams.
"Beyond just being the last director, she is my mother, so it's going to be a lot harder for her to say no." Seckinger jokes.
Seckinger will officially take over for Adams on September 3oth.