The Chris Draft Family Foundation takes enormous pride in helping to improve communities all over the United States. However, Chris Draft realizes that this task is not one that can be achieved alone but instead takes the efforts of others that share in this mission. Through the community improvement initiative, the foundation builds an alliance of civic minded individuals who are dedicated to providing America’s neighborhoods with safe environments in which to play, learn, and grow while adopting healthy lifestyles.

With Buffalo now being Chris’ home away from home throughout the football season, he has teamed up with various individuals and organizations to help improve the community there.  One organization in particular that has set out to achieve that same goal is PUSH (People United for Sustainable Housing) Buffalo.  PUSH is a grassroots non-profit organization working to rebuild the West Side of Buffalo, by organizing residents to confront institutions that perpetuate poverty and to create and implement an action plan for improving the neighborhood.  PUSH strives to build a democratic, action oriented organization capable of addressing the lack of living, wage jobs, and poor housing conditions on Buffalo’s West Side.
 
PUSH, along with Delores Powell, a Jamaican immigrant who was the beneficiary of "Extreme Makeover" and also a member of their board, will definitely start the 2010 New Year off with a bang as they will celebrate the Extreme Makeover Premiere on January 24, 2010.  In the TV Project, PUSH partnered with city and state agencies including AmeriCorps and a local contractor to rehabilitate 17 vacant housing units in an energy-efficient manner in its core area — the Massachusetts Avenue corridor, a poor area pockmarked by extreme poverty.  Nine vacant lots also have been converted into projects that include vegetable gardens, a tree farm and the capture of rainwater, and a park that fell into disarray behind the Butler-Mitchell Boys Club is being redesigned.
 
PUSH’s Organizing Director, Eric Walker told the Buffalo News Paper that, "What makes us unique is that, unlike a lot of groups that are doing development or community-based work, we're interested in building power for people in the neighborhood. That's not something you see very often.”  "For us, power is community control of resources."
 
Michael Clarke, program director of a nonprofit that works to revitalize distressed neighborhoods, considers PUSH the leading grass-roots force in Buffalo, and the most effective agent for change on the West Side.  Clarke also told Buffalo News that, "No one is doing the kind of extensive outreach PUSH has done. They understand that community-based planning and organizing is the way to go.”  "They're also not afraid to stand up to people and say, "Look, this is what needs to happen, and this is what you're doing wrong. "
 
PUSH also offers “Green” Housing Rehabilitation and the PUSH Housing Co-operative, Youthbuild Training Initiative, Neighborhood Networking and Leadership Development, Asthma Education Initiative, Community Planning, Vacant Lot Re-purposing, and Green Jobs Advocacy through their outreach.
 
Chris Draft and the Draft Family Foundation are extremely excited to combine efforts with such a dynamic establishment such as PUSH, and Aaron Bartley, PUSH's executive director who co-founded the organization in the fall of 2005 with Walker thanks Chris for bringing his energy to Buffalo.  Bartley told the Buffalo News that, "There is always this bigger frame about the origins of poverty in Buffalo, and we definitely don't want to ignore that; it's what we try to do public education about. But you have to pick winnable issues and focus your energy; and making tangible, physical improvements helps show people who have grown cynical from the disinvestment on the West Side that change is possible.

Together Draft and PUSH will prove just that to the Buffalo West Side community……that change is possible!  For more information on PUSH visit www.pushbuffalo.org.