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June 25, 2008Cities Consider Copying Children's Charity in Harlem |
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It's 7:30 a.m., and Altheo Serrao's family has just arrived in Harlem from Staten Island, a two-hour journey by bus, ferry and subway. They do this every school day to be part of a program that isn't available anywhere else in New York City - or, for that matter, anywhere else in the country. The zone takes on the same kinds of seemingly impossible urban problems that Baltimore and so many other cities face: poverty, crime, troubled schools, overwhelmed parents. Conceived by Canada, 56, a children's advocate who grew up surrounded by poverty and violence in the South Bronx, the Harlem Children's Zone was born out of his frustration with well-meaning nonprofits that were too narrow in their focus. He pitched the idea - blanket a swath of Harlem with all manner of children's services - to Rheedlen board member Stanley Druckenmiller, a friend from Bowdoin College and billionaire hedge-fund manager. Zone employees say they know how important it is to keep kids busy and off the streets. Many of the programs stretch from early-morning hours until well into the evening, as late as 8 or 9 p.m., and run through the summer. The charter schools also have an open-door policy, serving as safe places for kids any time a staff member is present. Serrao, a petite woman capable of lugging four-book-filled backpacks at once (she is a nursing student at a Harlem community college), volunteers in the mornings, helping teachers prepare for the day. Permission to reprint an article that appeared in the Baltimore Sun.
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