Father’s Day is Sunday and for Terry Seay, a fatherhood program manager, that means going on the radio to reach out to fathers and their families.
Seay said during a Friday phone interview that he’d be on WUFO 1080 AM, this Sunday, to get the word out about the Buffalo Prenatal Perinatal Network’s Nurturing Fathers classes this summer that start Monday in Buffalo. He also talked about past partnerships, including Lockport, when the organization was able to bring its services to other communities.
“We had partnered with Lockport,” Seay said. “They had asked us to do a couple of classes for the Lockport City School District under the My Brother’s Keeper grant and we completed one cohort about a year ago.”
Currently, Seay said that the tentative plan is to do another year of classes, but things have to be finalized before making the official announcement. He noted that he attended the school district’s Unity Fest and many people left their names and contact information to learn more about the classes.
“We will forward that to the point person there and hopefully we can get another (Lockport) class going soon,” he said. “That’s the plan and desire for Lockport, we just need to get things finalized.”
And according to Superintendent Mathis Calvin III, the feeling is mutual.
“The district is open and interested in bringing the program back for another year,” he said. “Our goal is to support our students and supporting fathers — and future fathers — is certainly part of that.”
Seay said that the program starts with a lesson on what fatherhood looks like to each student.
“More than likely that comes from your father, or the fact that your father was not there, and that’s a lesson right there,” he said.
Seay said that regardless of where a student’s view of fatherhood comes from an uncle, a neighbor, or “a TV dad,” the issue isn’t where that view came from, it’s what the student wants to use as a father themselves.
“Whether you’re a father or not — you can think about it, you can look at it. You can start forming a plan on ‘the father I choose to be’ and when that time comes you’ll be better prepared,” Seay said. “What we teach you here helps you to be a better person, a better man, and that puts you in a position to be the best father, best husband or partner.”
While a schedule for the Lockport class is still to be determined, Seay said interested parties can contact him for information on more programming in the region.
Seay can be reached at 443-453-4875 or interested parties can go to the bppn.org website for more information on the organization’s initiatives.