Why children are getting and what UB is - University at Buffalo

alumniprofile
Community leader draws on her
immigrant story to strengthen
Western New York
Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker
The New York Times in 1999 called her “an immaculately turned-out woman.”
The striking beauty, polished wardrobe and inspiring accomplishments of Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker invite comparisons
to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis—a woman so frequently noted for her taste and poise that it sometimes eclipsed her equally
impressive intellectual acumen.
Dedecker, a warm and seemingly tireless Cuban exile, has paved a career path that has included leading the 193,000-
member Association of Junior Leagues International, service on national boards and the President’s Council on Service and
Civic Participation, and shepherding the U.S. Committee for the United Nations International Year of the Volunteer celebration
in 2000.
Today, as president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo (CFGB), Dedecker devotes herself to making
Western New York a stronger, more inclusive place to live. She also has found time to serve on key community boards and collaborated
to launch the Family Justice Center of Erie County for
victims of domestic violence.
Dedecker close-up
Dedecker says she owes much of her drive and passion to
UB degree EdM ’01; Favorite quote from a restaurant wall “Success is her parents. “‘Grow where you are planted.’ My parents very
the point in the road where preparation meets opportunity”; Memory of much have lived that philosophy,” she says.
leaving Cuba at age 8 Just before boarding the plane, she slung a favorite
doll over one shoulder—a signal to those secretly watching from States, the Perez-Bode family was ordered to leave Cuba two
Three years after seeking permission to come to the United
afar that no one in the family was to be detained; National service Vice days after Christmas 1967. On December 29, they boarded a
president of the National Conference for Community and Justice, and plane, each of them allowed to carry only a meager bag of personal
items.
board member of the National Association of Commissions for Women
From almost that moment on, the University at Buffalo
became a recurring theme in Dedecker’s life: first helping her
father revalidate his dentistry degree, next as the setting in which Dedecker received her 2001 master’s degree in education
and today as a key partner assisting the foundation she now runs.
CFGB hired Dedecker in 2005 as vice president to increase the impact of its $185 million in assets and more than 800
endowed and non-endowed charitable funds. She wants to make concrete changes to help Buffalo thrive once again as it
did in its heyday a century ago.
In 2007, Dedecker announced a five-year strategy to address some of the most serious challenges facing Western New
York, while simultaneously building on the area’s strengths as a center for arts, history, architecture and natural resources.
One year later, Read to Succeed Buffalo—a school-readiness program designed to help reverse the dismal reality that 50
percent of Buffalo’s preschoolers are at risk for academic failure—is one early initiative already showing promising results.
Story by Irene Liguori, with photo by Douglas Levere, BA ’89
www.alumni.buffalo.edu UBTODAY Winter 2009 35