Resident Bobby Dinkins recently was hired as the new director of the Springfield Township Senior/Community Center.
Dinkins is a graduate of the University of Akron and has 23 years of journalism, public relations, marketing and business experience.
Dinkins has been a volunteer for many groups within the township, including the Springfield Schools Academic Foundation and the Springfield Schools Levy Committee.
In 1989 he began working for the Pro Bowlers Association (PBA) and was there for 17 years. He said he was on the road a lot with the PBA doing media and public relations, marketing, promotions, ran the hall of fame, wrote the rule book and ran two tour programs.
“I think getting to know the personalities of those on the senior tour fits in with what goes on here at the senior center,” said Dinkins. “I also did the operations which included taking care of the building, making sure that the windows were washed to making sure there was toilet paper and things like that. That also translates into what I am doing here.”
Dinkins said one of his goals is to get more involved with the community.
“I volunteered for the community center committee to help establish more use of the building and to create more programs,” he said.
“When I heard Julie was retiring I decided to apply for her position,” he said. “I thought this would be an interesting position for me. I think my skill set lends itself to something like this. I can accomplish a goal of working for my community and trying to better my community.”
He said his father passed away at age 59 and it sent a message to him about what is important in life.
“Life is too short to think about money and poccessions. It opened my eyes to what is important like the people in the community and going to the kid’s baseball and soccer games.”
Dinkins’ wife, Shelly, is a high school math teacher at Northwest High School. The couple has two children, Madison, 9, and Nicholas, 7.
“There’s a long history of programming at the center with the senior residents of our community. We’d like to expand those activities as well as increase programming for all of our residents,” said Dinkins.
He stated the center has daytime activities and he would like to create evening activities for community members.
“I would like to create a movie night down at the lake for families,” he said. “Bringing more people down to the lake, which is really the jewel of the township, would be great. Not many communities have a great resource like the lake, the gazebo and this center which has a full kitchen and holds over 100 people.”
Dinkins plans to bring in more speakers for the seniors and add many activities for everyone including health fairs, a moonlight dance on the lake, soup fest, chili cook-offs, day camps for the kids, campouts on the lake, water activities, an art show and lessons and maybe ballroom dance lessons.
“I have stacks of things I am thinking about and the key is to attract enough volunteers to support what we are trying to do here,” he said. “If we get enough volunteers we can add programming and frankly our residents deserve fun things and family oriented things to do. My goal is to help bring that to our community.”
Dinkins said he thinks of the BASF commercial that states ‘We don’t make this, we just make it better.’
“Here we already have a fabulous foundation, the home cooked meal program and the three staff members, Patty Price, Kitty Phillips and Pearl Salhany that do an amazing job here,” said Dinkins. “The goal for me is not to come in and shake things up. It is just to take what is already here and not disrupt it, just make it better.”
He also stated that he wants to live in Springfield the rest of his life.
“It is a fabulous community and I think it is an undiscovered community,” he said. “Once we get our school system straightened out and get a new school building in the next few years, this community can really take off, no question. There are amazing people in this community that have great knowledge, great passion, great ideas and we just have to tap into that and bring them into the program.”
For more information on programming, to volunteer or offer program suggestions contact the center at 330-733-2556.
