Buffalo City Units is a support network for our 3 sister-squadrons, each hosted at a Buffalo Charter School.

Logo for civil air patrol unit that has a buffalo in the foreground, with a lighthouse and airplane in the background

Buffalo Guardians Cadet Squadron

(NY-615)

WNY Maritime Charter School

2219 South Park Ave, Buffalo, NY 14220

A civil air patrol patch with four start and a large pen nid in the background and a road with a civil air patrol roundel in the foreground.

Path Carver Cadet Squadron

(NY-616)

BuffSci Charter School

18 Agassiz Circle, Buffalo, NY 14204

a civil air patrol logo with a large pen nib surrounded by four stars

Buffalo Creek Cadet Squadron

(NY-614)

REACH Academy Charter School,

266 Genesee, Buffalo, NY 14204

Friends of Buffalo Creek (FOBC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that supports youth leadership and aerospace programming across Buffalo. FOBC powers the Buffalo City Units (BCU) support network, which provides coordination, shared resources, and training alignment across multiple Civil Air Patrol cadet squadrons. BCU is not a Civil Air Patrol command echelon, it enhances collaboration and program delivery at the local level. FOBC currently has 3 partner schools: BuffSci Middle & High School, REACH Academy Middle School, and WNY Maritime Middle High School. Each partner school has its very own unit.

What is a Civil Air Patrol Unit? What is a charter number?

Just like Girl Scouts and JROTC, Civil Air Patrol is a national program divided into smaller units to achieve its goals. All of our units have their own unit commander, adult staff, and cadet leadership staff.

Charter Number: Each unit has its own charter number. The long version includes the region, state, and individual charter. Our region is the North East Region (NER), and our state is New York (NY). For example, here are the long charter numbers for our supported units:

NER-NY-614

Buffalo Creek Cadet Squadron - hosted at REACH Academy Charter School (REACH)

NER-NY-615

Buffalo Guardians Cadet Squadron - hosted at WNY Maritime Charter School (Maritime)

NER-NY-616

Path Carver Cadet Squadron - hosted at the Buffalo Academy of Sciences (BuffSci)

What do units actually do during the meetings?

Flights meet each week at their unit location. The cadets have 2 hours of activities. Meetings are broken into 2 halves: 1st Half, Snack Break, 2nd Half.

  • Flights have at least one Saturday activity each month.

  • Flights are the units that prepare cadets for WNY, New York State, and National event participation.

  • We train the cadets and promote them through the ranks, promote them to unit and leadership roles.

  • We are the cadets’ “CAP Family".

What are Group, Wing, Regional, and National Activities/Events?

In New York State, all units are assigned to a geographic “group,” and then all groups fall under the state-level “wing. Group activities involve cadets and senior members from WNY units, while Wing-level activities involve cadets and seniors from across the state. National events are just as they sound; they involve cadets and seniors from all across the country.

Group = All units in the geographic area of a large state. Command echelon (WNY for us).

Wing = All units in the state (NYS) for us. Command Echelon.

Region = Multi-state command echelon for a geographic region of the US.

National = All units in the country.

Cadets and Seniors have access to all of these activities (some have age/qualification restrictions). Cadets and seniors work with their unit commanders and parents (for cadets) to sign up for these activities.

All cadets have access to the unit, group, wing, regional, and national calendars through the Registration Zone. Parents have access through the parent portal.