Robert Kordenbrock has been hired as the new Executive Director of the Fenway Community Center. Kordenbrock has lived in Fenway with his wife for seven years, and he says his background is two-fold. He spent six years in youth development roles at places like Citizen Schools, a non-profit that works with low-income kids to provide extra academic resources. He also served as the interim executive director for Jamaica Plain’s Kids Arts, an after-school arts program.
He has also done volunteer engagement work and worked in the corporate sector at places like Common Impact, where he facilitated volunteer consulting. Kordenbrock was also the director of nonprofit programs at Building Impact, which does hands-on volunteering.
Kordenbrock holds an MBA in social impact from Boston University Questrom School of Business. He said his goal as executive director is to “get people in here to make sure that we’re meeting the needs of the entire community.”
He said that he wants to make sure that the space at the community center is accessible to local groups that would like to use the space to hold programs and events as well.
“I’m really excited to connect with and get to know the various organizations that make up the Fenway community,” he said. “I’ll be able to see the impact of the work on a daily basis.”
Kordenbrock said that he wants to approach this role from a collaborative mindset and try to create partnerships with local organizations to serve the entire Fenway neighborhood.
“We are excited to have Robert join our board, its committees, and neighbors in making the Fenway the best possible place to live. We are grateful for Robert’s vision for forming community partnerships and taking our center into the future,” the Fenway Community Center board wrote in a statement on their website. “We are happy to have someone of Robert’s caliber leading the center.”
Kordenbrock said that the center is starting to slowly open up for events in the next couple of weeks with partnerships with Operation PEACE.
The community center will have a grand re-opening in September, which Kordenbrock said he hopes will help people to become “reacquainted” with the community center and what it has to offer.