Re-energizing the MLK Center

The search criteria to become the executive director  of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Long Beach stressed that the right person had to be an educator as well as someone who served as a community volunteer.

Melissa Spleen fit the bill.

Spleen applied for the program director position online last September. She was quickly promoted as the interim director while the previous director, Mack Graham, was transitioning out of the role. Upon the end of Graham’s tenure, Spleen was named the new executive director. Graham remains a volunteer with the center.

Spleen, 32, grew up in Hempstead and attended Hempstead High School. She attended The City College of New York, where she studied math and adolescent education, before transferring to SUNY Old Westbury where she earned her bachelor’s degree in 2013. She began teaching that same year, and now teaches algebra and geometry at Hempstead High School.

She also has her master’s degree in special education from CUNY Hunter.

As a college student, she worked with the Jewish Child Care Association’s foster home services as a tutor for children at different foster homes.

Spleen spent time as the youth advisor for the Family and Children’s Association, a not-for-profit that helps Long Island’s most vulnerable children, families, seniors and communities. She has been a part of My Brother’s Keeper, established by former president Barack Obama to address the gaps in opportunities for children of color. She also volunteered with the Morrison Mentors, an educational consulting organization based in Hempstead that bridges in-school and out-of-school learning.

Spleen also created the Black Student Union at Hempstead High School last year, where she said she “developed a passion to service and to be an advocate and guide, especially for kids of color.”

“A lot of the skills that I did have were able to transfer over,” Spleen said regarding her position with the MLK Center. “As the executive director, a lot of those skills are useful. All my skills of directing and leading and being in the educational field help me.”

The MLK Center had several executive directors over the past several years. Spleen is the latest, and hopes to remain in her post to bring about more positive experiences.

“She’s been a great addition and a breath of fresh air,” said Cedrick Coad, the chairman of the MLK Center. “She brings key educational experience.”

While acting as the program director, Spleen spent much of her time networking with organizations around Long Beach and getting to know the community, its children, parents and elders. She said she went out into the community to learn “different services and programs that the community will definitely benefit from.”

Spleen created and revamped a handful of clubs, programs and events at the center for the community. She was instrumental in expanding weekly movie nights and game nights and weekly kickboxing and yoga classes. She also created a weekly book club and revamped the homework club, which meets every day during the school year.

“We were able to get in contact with teachers,” Spleen said. “We met with the middle school, the principal and some of the guidance counselors to create a more structured way of communicating.”

Spleen said if a youngster came to the club and said he or she didn’t have homework, she and the other MLK workers would reach out to their teacher, just to make sure.

“What is it that he or she is working on for the week?” Spleen said she would ask the teachers. “Then we would have our resources where we would make sure the students were doing some kind of enrichment and working on their reading skills and math computation.”

Along with the schoolwork, Spleen said the center offers the children other activities. Whether it be art, kickboxing, basketball or just free time in the gym, the MLK Center has expanded its services greatly during Spleen’s time as executive director.

“For a lot of our kids, this is their safe place,” she said. “We are here as a family and that’s also the reason why we receive so much support from our community. At the very least, they see that our kids mean so much to us.”

Coad said Spleen has been “a great addition to the MLK family” and that before he even has to call her about anything, “she’s on top of it.”