News and Updates

August 4, 2015

Get to Know Your Neighbor: Spotlight on Victor Gordon from Pontilly

by Kyle J. Shelly, Liaison
Filed under: leadership development, neighborhood spotlight

“Prior to 1970,” says Victor Gordon, President of the Pontilly Neighborhood Association, “Gentilly Woods and Pontchartrain Park were separate communities.”  He explains that it was a crisis at the local university that motivated the leadership of both communities to come together, cooperate, and solve problems for the area, and it was a cooperation that stuck.

Gordon has lived within the boundaries of the adjoining communities since 1966 and is proud to serve as the association’s current president, almost half a century later.  When asked what he loves best about his neighborhood, Mr. Gordon provides a long list: “the pride exhibited by the past leadership of the community; the community involvement of the younger generation; the family environment; community engagement in the schools; our places of worship; our commercial corridor; and most of all, the community’s engaged residents and organizations.”

His passion for his community certainly shines through and his advice for other leaders across the city is to engage and represent all members of the area in which they serve as well as to work with other communities across the city.  Next on the agenda for the Pontilly Neighborhood Association, along with neighboring organizations, is the series of Hurricane Katrina commemorative events planned in late August.  The association hopes to “honor those residents of Pontilly who lost everything or died during Hurricane Katrina.”