Bird Street Community Center (legally incorporated as "Uphams Corner Community Center, Inc.") is a private, nonprofit organization providing high quality, affordable child care and recreational, educational and developmental activities for youth and their families in North Dorchester and surrounding neighborhoods of Boston. We serve more than 650 youth between the ages of 5 and 19 year-round with a variety of programs that encourage and promote their intellectual, physical, and social development.

History:

We began as the Bird Street Gym, owned and operated by the City of Boston. Budgetary constraints forced the City to close the gym. The residents of Uphams Corner, recognizing a serious community need, organized to reopen the facility. Through a then-unique private-public partnership with the City of Boston, the residents transformed the abandoned City Gym into a youth center, which was run for a decade by volunteers.

In the mid 1980s, Bird Street Community Center started to expand, adding services and programs initiated by residents to meet the developmental needs of the community's youth. Our programs now include licensed after school child care, educational support, a girls program, boys group, sports and recreation, leadership, workforce development, youth violence prevention, community service and life skills. Our membership has increased by 400% since 1992, producing a dramatic space shortage and limiting our ability to meet programming demands. An expansion of our programs and services is now being addressed in partnership with Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation and Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses.

Contact:

If you have any questions about Bird Street Community Center please contact the Executive Director, Andrea Kaiser at (617) 282-6110, ext. 21