If you have fond memories of your prom, you can do your part this year to make sure that a needy high school girl in Western New York has that experience regardless of the economy or other financial difficulties in her life.

Buffalo State College's chapter of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) is collecting dresses to donate to Colvin Cleaners' annual "Gowns 4 Prom" Prom Dress Drive. Simply bring your old prom dress or dresses to the NYPIRG office, room 419 of the Campbell Student Union building by Tuesday, April 6 at 5pm.

The drive is

Medaille College has announced that it will receive $400,000 in grant funding from the John R. Oishei Foundation over the next three years. This donation is going toward a college program called Project EQUIP, a program that contributes to community-based service learning programs for undergraduate students.

This program, among other things, will allow students to participate in service learning activities and pursue internships and senior capstones that take them outside of a classroom setting and into the Buffalo community. Project EQUIP is an acronym for helping students "explore

Out-of-town visitors with money burning a hole in their pockets are catching a break from the City of Buffalo.  Free and discounted parking is being offered at City-owned facilities to fans attending the NCAA Tournament this weekend.    While City-owned ramps are at capacity due to regular parkers during the day Friday, the HSBC and Adam ramps will be able to accommodate about 150 parkers for the noon games at a $5.00 rate.  In the evening, rates will be $5.00 at HSBC, Augspurger, and Adam ramps and $2 at other locations. 

For Sunday games, consistent with

We launched this latest version of Buffalo Rising a little over a year ago.  This latest version has proven quite popular as our traffic continues to grow.  We had over 2.3M visits last year and our traffic through the first two months of this year is up over 20% over last year's first two months. Better yet, we just had our highest traffic day ever last week thanks in no small part to the

On Saturday, the Buffalo Rugby Club hosted their 15th annual "7s in the Snow Tournament".  The tournament began in Delaware Park with half a dozen local teams, though it has grow to over 35 teams from NY, Pennsylvania and Canada.  
This year there were over 400 participants playing rugby on 5 fields.  The teams included men's, women's and college teams. 7 on 7 rugby is a shorter, more wide open format that is used for the tournament.  Instead of the normal 15 on 15 teams, the 7 on 7 leads to more scoring which is more fun for the fans and

The College and Community Partnerships Office at Buffalo State College will host "Celebration of Partnerships" on Thursday, February 25, from 8 to 10AM, in room 210 of the E. H. Butler Library on campus. The networking program is designed to build relationships between businesses, nonprofit organizations, and college faculty for collaborative projects that are beneficial to the local community.

All are welcome to R.S.V.P. for the event, which includes a continental breakfast and will showcase model partnerships via posters, brief presentations, and handouts. To make a reservation, call

By now you may have heard of the Buffalo Powder Keg Festival's attempt to build the World's Largest Arctic Glacier Ice Maze, or tubing down a closed-to-traffic Skyway exit ramp... but there's a lot more going on and this post kicks off a series that will keep festival-goers up to date with myriad activities and events. 

Chris Catanzaro (photo) is happily heading up the All-Pro Competitions

Everything's going to be alright for Delores Powell and her family, thanks to an army of Buffalo soldiers and their well-aimed good intentions. 
Last night, at Shea's Buffalo Theater, the faithful gathered to witness the culmination of a dream come true, when the two-hour Buffalo special, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, aired on ABC.
The ABC show was responsible for bringing the the

The City of Buffalo is looking for a few good men, and women, and young adults too. 
The City is partnering with Border Community Service at Niagara University to develop a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) to assist emergency service personnel in the event of a major disaster here.
The free training program prepares you to help yourself, your family, and neighbors in the event of such an emergency. Pre-registration is required and will continue until January 29th. Participants

When head coach Turner Gill left UB for Kansas, everyone knew the program would likely take a step backward.  Now, unfortunately, the program is taking another hit as starting quarterback Zach Maynard has decided to leave the program.  It's not immediately clear as to why Maynard is leaving but there appears to be differences with new coach Jeff Quinn. 

Coach Quinn released the following statment:

"I'm very disappointed in Zach's decision to leave our program prior to getting to know our coaching staff,"

It's often overlooked but Buffalo is home to more than 45,000 college students. If you look more broadly at the Buffalo-Niagara region, we're home to over 70,000 100,000 students (correction courtesy of the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise).  That's a large part of our population, our culture, our economy and, most importantly, our future. 

We're launching a new College channel on Buffalo Rising to serve as a home for more content about all the colleges in our area. 

"Today's meeting involved a good discussion about the University at Buffalo's strategic plan and the university's role in the economic development of our community." 
This statement was issued jointly after yesterday's meeting in which University at Buffalo President John

In a press conference Saturday morning, Congressman Brian Higgins urged that the University at Buffalo expand its downtown footprint by assuming responsibility for reuse of the Statler Building.  In a letter to University President John Simpson the Congressman envisions the now empty former hotel as the new home of the UB Law School.
"I understand they have taken a look at this in the past, but they need to look again," says Higgins.  "The University has an obligation to the city from which it gets its name.  UB is an ideal anchor tenant and has the opportunity

Local developer Rocco Termini knows exactly what he'd like to see done to save the Statler Building, but he says he wouldn't sign on without the University of Buffalo.
Specifically, Rocco would like to see the UB Law School become a tenant of the Statler.  "It makes perfect sense," Termini says.  "Most major cities have their law schools downtown.  Just like the medical school is being built around the hospitals, law students need to be where the courts are."
At

For the second year in a row, the UB community (faculty, staff and students) has been invited to join the University at Buffalo Citizens Police Academy.  The academy offers free classes in order to illustrate how the police force operates and strives to ensure safety on campus and in the surrounding communities.
This seven-week course, starting February 10th, is geared towards raising awareness and reducing crime. Providing an inclusive look into the lives of policemen, this course also explains the police's pertinent role within the criminal justice system.

Today marks the 20th of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  To celebrate the incredible impact of the event, Canisius College and 27 other colleges and universities provided faux Berlin Walls in visible sections of campus to remind students of how the world changed that day. 

Canisius applied to take part in the project through the German Missions in the United States' "Freedom