Our mission is to create opportunities.

Since 1965, Opportunities for Broome and Opportunities for Chenango, Inc. have helped to serve their respective communities with their greatest needs. Community Action Agencies, like OFB and OFC, were born out of President Johnson’s War on Poverty and were designed with the idea that local communities know best how to meet their needs. Like many “social welfare agencies,” both agencies were minimally funded and were acting on the knowledge available to them at the time. Staffing consisted of individuals that were essentially “activists” looking to meet the needs of people in their own communities. Although many things have changed in the over fifty years each agency has been open, there are also many things that have remained the same. We are no longer a minimally funded grass-roots agency, as we now administer multi-million dollar grants on an annual basis to assist our communities in areas such as housing, education, and nutrition. We no longer have to count the people we serve by hand, but now track all of our outcomes in professional databases. But what has remained steadfast, is our dedication to our communities and meeting the needs of the people we serve. That has been part of our mission from the beginning and will continue to be far into the future.

Robert Starr and Jerry Skrivan

The unique thing about OFB and OFC’s decision to merge is that neither agency needed to merge. Both agencies had remarkable reputations with our funders and were considered strong agencies within our communities. We were not weak agencies, looking to survive in a turbulent economic climate. Rather, we were progressive agencies looking to see what we could do better to serve our clients and our communities by coming together as one.

In 2013, Opportunities for Broome and Opportunities for Chenango, Inc. began discussing the possibility of a merger of the two agencies. With economic downturns and possible funding scarcity, a merger would accomplish multiples goals: enhance organizational capacity to achieve results; reduce administrative costs; increase flexibility to meet the needs of the clients we serve and provide an opportunity to focus on our mission of empowering people and our communities. Although bigger is not always better, a merged agency would provide us the capability of adapting to meet the needs of our communities and those we serve. With the dedicated support of the Board of Directors, the trust and support of the personnel of both agencies, and a tremendous amount of hard work, we are proud to finally announce the merger of the two agencies into Greater Opportunities for Broome and Chenango, Inc. As one of the few Community Action Agencies across New York State serving multiple counties, we are very excited to start our new endeavor while we continue to create opportunities for those we serve.