Scarlet McCahill, Project HOME’s Community Education & Engagement Special, recently received an A+ from 8th graders at Warren G. Harding Middle School in the Frankfort section of Philadelphia, where she gave a “Homelessness 101” presentation. The students are working on a Need in Deed community project and chose homelessness as their focus topic. Below are some of the responses from the students.
As students all over Philadelphia settle into another year of reading, writing, and arithmetic, a former student has returned to help usher a new generation of students to college and beyond.
Tanisha Clanton, a former participant at our Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs (HLC-CTL) and the first college graduate from our College Access Program (CAP), is a sterling example to the youngsters she now works with of what is possible with hard work and community support.
Tanisha – a 2012 graduate of Albright College – uses her art degree in her role as Art Specialist to spark the hopes of Philadelphia's future leaders, providing them with a glimpse of the promising future that awaits them.
In other words, she has the coolest job around. “I get to teach children to imagine,” she says with a huge smile.
Tanisha’s journey from student to teacher was not a smooth one, however; she and her family struggled with homelessness before they became one of the first families to move into our Rowan Homes residence in 2000. It would be the first of many challenging transitions in Tanisha’s life.
“It’s not every day you get your own home after staying in a shelter, so it was a big chance,” she remembers. “But I had to figure out how to get to school on the bus and everything like that.”
Tanisha’s first transition was by far the rockiest. The middle-schooler had “a lot of anger issues” that needed to be addressed, and her mother hoped a change of scenery would do the trick before her grades began to slip, which neither Tanisha nor her mother wanted to see happen.
“I am a smart person and I really take my education seriously,” she said. “And my mom would get upset if I didn’t do my work.”
A transfer to the Young Scholars Charter School led to a marked improvement in her behavior, and Tanisha credits the new social atmosphere and the school’s unwillingness to tolerate “nonsense” for the turnaround. The new academic environment also provided Tanisha with the room to explore her academic and personal interests, where she realized she wasn’t just a kid who liked to color, but was a budding artist.
Even at 10 years old, Tanisha would “take art very seriously”, so it came as little surprise to her family that she chose to attend Philadelphia’s Charter High School for Architecture and Design (CHAD), a diverse, creative environment that fostered her artistic growth.
“I was enhancing my skills because I had no idea what I was doing,” she remembered with a laugh. She realized that she loved painting and hated sculpting, and that she was a people person who could find commonalities with nearly anyone.
She was also branching out in other ways, spending her non-school hours at the HLC-CTL, eventually becoming a part of our Teen Program as a teacher’s assistant and taking advantage of the resources available through the Harold A. Honickman Entrepreneurial Program to start “Tanisha’s Spectacular Water Ice”, a stand she operated every season in Rittenhouse Square for three years.
Despite all of this energy and ambition, she initially didn’t want to go to college. She loved the structure that high school provided and worried what would happen once “everything [was] on [me]”. Tanisha initially decided to get a job to help her mother until a friend convinced her that “the best thing I could do to help my mother is to go to college”. So, with scholarships set up by Project H.O.M.E. and our generous donors, Tanisha was able to get to college and stay there.
So another transition – this time to Albright College in 2008 – was in the offing. “When I first got there I was so nervous,” she said. Everything, it seemed, was a stressor: college roommates; cafeteria food; a fear of failure.
And now, a few months removed from accepting bachelor’s degree? “I miss school!” she said with a laugh. “You can either go with a positive attitude and come out with a positive outcome or go in with a negative attitude and watch everything crumble in front of you.”
That she was able to achieve the positive outcome seems to have inspired her younger siblings, as well; her brother, Leonard, is in his first semester at Bloomsburg University, and her 10th-grade sister, Latanya, is already eyeing schools in Colorado and Connecticut.
As for Tanisha, she is looking at graduate schools with the hope of enrolling next fall. But is she ready for yet another transition?
“I’ve mastered the art of adjustment,” she offers through a confident smile.
Deward Johns knew this day was coming.
Speaking on behalf of his 11 fellow departing seniors from the College Access Program (CAP) at the recent graduation ceremony held at Project H.O.M.E.'s Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs, Johns betrayed a common mix of anxiety and confidence when contemplating the important high school-to-college transition.
"As I moved through the Teen Program and entered each new school year, it always felt bittersweet because I knew that each new grade meant I was getting closer…to college," he said.
But Johns credited CAP for preparing him for the academic and personal challenges ahead, lauding the program for having contributed to his growth as a student and a person. "Every moment here has been truly genuine and special for me from the time I started four years ago until now."
The College Access Program is intended to prepare area high school students for college by providing SAT prep, tutoring, college and university visits, financial counseling, and scholarships. The support structure even extends into their college years as staff maintain contact with graduates, rendering support and guidance to ensure they stay focused and on track to graduate.
The year was a good one for the program; we supported 15 high school juniors and 19 CAP alumni (students currently enrolled in an institution of higher education) in addition to our 12 graduating seniors. Those graduating seniors maintained almost uniformly excellent GPAs, were accepted to over 50 colleges and universities throughout the United States, and were offered over $140,000 in scholarships, adding to the over $40,000 in scholarships generously provided by our donors.
Perhaps the year's best news came with CAP's first college graduate, Tanisha Clanton, who earned her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art from Albright College. The 2008 CAP graduate is currently working as an Art Specialist at a summer camp/afterschool program administered by Caring People Alliance. Clanton credited CAP with helping her "understand the challenges that would be thrown my way and how to conquer them with motivation."
Clanton also singled out Tomika Brown, the College Access Program Coordinator, for special praise, citing Brown's tough-love approach for keeping her on track. "I must say that, without Tomika, a lot of things would not have gone smoothly," she said.
As for Brown, she couldn't be happier with CAP's newest graduating class. Aside from their academic excellence, Brown was heartened to watch them become a "family, sharing college and scholarship information and offering support and encouragement to one another as they balanced the challenges of senior year and college planning."
Brown cited the overwhelming trust CAP has inculcated over the years for the program's consistent success. "Our students [have] to make tough decisions, answering questions like 'Should I choose college over employment?' and 'Which college is best for me considering my family can't afford to pay tuition?'" she said. "Our students trust us to help them make the best decisions for their futures and that we have their best interests at heart."
That trust has been well placed, according to LaTanya Williams, whose eldest son, Khavaughn, is currently a sophomore at Penn State.
"I am grateful for [the help Khavaughn received] with his decisions about his choice of schools and for keeping in touch with him during the school year to make sure he was doing okay,” she said. “This assistance [helped] him continue reaching for his educational goals."
You can also read the transcript of Deward's speech here. For photos from the ceremony, visit our Facebook album. Finally, our summer youth interns just finished up their placements – students who will soon be in Deward's position! – so click over to our YouTube channel to hear them discuss their work!
Vernon Jordan III is pumped.
The high school senior, bound for Muhlenberg College in the fall, has been afforded the opportunity to end his high school experience with style as the Master of Ceremonies at our May 16 Young Leaders Event at Urban Outfitters Headquarters at the Navy Yard.
“I’m looking forward to giving excitement to the crowd, helping to promote all the wonderful youth that are part of the event, and joining a host of young professionals – my future peers – in their endeavors to leave their marks,” said Jordan.
The event will provide the enterprising students of our H.Y.P.E. (Helping Youth Pursue Excellence) Teen Program at the Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs the opportunity to showcase their varied talents and interests, a platform on which they intend to shine.
"The event is going to be our largest audience yet," said MC Bernard Connor, a member of the student-operated Inner Power Records. "This is good because we want to share our message that hip-hop music can be about the youth making positive choices. We are challenging stereotypes every time we get on stage."
The entrepreneurial skills of the H.Y.P.E. students will also be on display during the event, and middle-school student Khalef Williams is excited about the possibilities. "It is going to be a good night to make money," he said. "We made these new products people are going to want to buy."
As any good entrepreneur knows, self-promotion is a key component to any successful commercial enterprise – a lesson the H.Y.P.E. students have learned experientially as they have been integral in helping to plan and promote the Young Leaders Event. Dobbins High School student Chante Smith designed the logo that is emblazoned on all of the event's promotional materials, and students in our Harold A. Honickman Young Entrepreneur Program (situated within the larger H.Y.P.E. program) worked closely with the Young Leaders committee to select products for sale and craft special event deals. Students in the film class even created a short piece promoting H.Y.P.E. and their experiences within it.
When the students visited the Urban Outfitters Headquarters to prepare their product displays, they were pretty wide-eyed. "The space is huge," said Khalef Williams. "People working there can get really good-looking snacks, lift some weights, read books, or just look at – but not feed – the fish."
So, if you plan to attend the event, please heed Khalef's warning and do not feed the fish.
It's not too late to register for the event – visit us here to get your tickets for the May 16 event at Urban Outfitters Headquarters at the Navy Yard. Click here for a full list of items available for bid at the event auction.
Today’s open house will provide information regarding our H.Y.P.E. Teen Program. The program enables students in grades 9-12 to look into college opportunities, find paid internships, take interesting classes outside of their everyday curriculum, or just relax somewhere after school. The open house is actually a series of one-hour sessions, and those interested should RSVP with Eliza Pollack – 215-235-2900, ext. 6121 or elizapollack@projecthome.org – and indicate whether they will be attending the 4 p.m., 5 p.m., or 6 p.m. session. Free food and giveaways will also be available!
The sessions will be held at the following location:
Honickman Learning Center & Comcast Technology Labs
1936 N. Judson St.
Philly 19121
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell joined Project H.O.M.E. on May 20 at a special breakfast launching the Alma and Colin Powell Education Fund at our Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs. This Fund will help provide scholarship opportunities for youth in our community to move forward with their post-secondary education. The following is adapted from Secretary Powell’s remarks at the breakfast.
We have a problem in this nation, and it is not Afghanistan, a minor problem. It is not Iraq, another minor problem. The real problem that will determine what kind of a nation we’re going to be and how successful we’re going to be in the future is a problem that’s right here at home: It’s the problem of educating our young people for a different kind of future, for a 21st century future – a future where the jobs are going to be more sophisticated and the needs are going to be greater.
We do have to deal with Afghanistan, terrorism, the Arab spring, the African Renaissance, and all sorts of things that are going on around the globe. But when you add up all of those places, it comes to about 500 million people, perhaps 600 million people who are causing these problems in those parts of the world. What are the other 6 and a half billion doing? Are they fighting each other? Are they having ethnic clashes? No, they’re focusing on their economies. China, India, Chile, Argentina, all around the world, everywhere I go, I see nations that realize what the 21st century is about: having political stability and moving your economy forward for the future. Any country that is not focusing on that is going to be left behind.
Colin Powell receives the Golden Heart Award from Sister Mary Scullion on May 20.
China is making enormous investments in its infrastructure as well as in its educational systems. I see the same thing in Brazil, Central and Eastern Europe. And then you look at the United States of America: We have a great educational system. We have the finest universities in the world, and we’re sending some of the most gifted students imaginable to those finest universities in the world. But, there is a major problem underneath all of that: We are becoming increasingly, a minority nation. In the next generation, Latinos, Hispanics, African Americans, and Asian Americans will constitute more than 51% of our people. Fortunately, we are the only nation in the world that could handle that kind of diversity. As I said to my European and Japanese friends, you all have immigration problems, people coming from here, people coming from there. We have immigration challenges, too, but the difference is that when people come to America, they come to become Americans. It enriches us, it refreshes us, with every new wave of immigration.
In my case, my father arrived in Philadelphia in 1920, and that’s where the current Powell family got started. My mother arrived in Ellis Island and they met somewhere in Connecticut. Daddy arrived at Philadelphia from Jamaica on one of those banana boats owned by United Fruit Company.
So that’s what has kept this country refreshed. But here is the problem: I can go to a community in America and visit one of the seven schools named after me. What’s exciting about these schools is that they are mostly in suburban areas, they’re outside the core of the city, and they are beautiful. They have learning centers; they have anything you could possibly want in an elementary or middle school. They have a tax-base, because they’re in that suburban neighborhood. They have intact families, because it’s a suburban neighborhood. The graduation rate in these schools is 80, 85, 90 percent.
But when you go to the inner core of a city, inside Philadelphia, inside Detroit, inside Minneapolis, inside New York, inside Newark, you find that we have left behind those who are not as well off, those who have difficulty finding work because their skill levels are low, those who are homeless, those who are from broken families of one kind or another. And for the most part, they are minority. We cannot leave them behind because they are going to be the majority. We have to invest in them in every possible way.
My wife Alma is the chair of America’s Promise, which we founded here in Philadelphia. The principle program within America’s Promise is Grad Nation. We have to become a nation of graduates. We cannot afford not to be a nation of graduates. I was watching a television show recently which featured the president of Siemens. He was saying, “I’ve got tens of thousands of jobs. I can’t find people who are capable of doing the work.” That tells me that we are not educating enough. We are not getting enough youngsters who have a high school education, which makes them trainable for these kinds of jobs. So it’s not just high school for the sake of high school, you have learned the basic skills of acquiring knowledge that allows you to be trained for something more specialized either in college or in a technical school, and that’s where we’re failing.
Many of our inner-city kids are on the way to nowhere. We cannot afford to waste a single kid. Not only is it bad for our economy, it gives a bad example to the rest of the world. But worse than that, it is morally unacceptable. How can we be a great nation, how can we be a model for the rest of the world, when we have communities where youngsters are not being taken care of? Where youngsters are not getting the kind of education they need? And that’s why this program, and what Project H.O.M.E. does, and what all of you are doing here, is so very, very important. It goes to the future of our country.
I’m a public school kid. I never went to a private school. Right out of Harlem, where I started, then to South Bronx, City College of New York. And I was not a great student. I was a straight C the whole way. When I got into CCNY, my average was probably below what is should have been to get in there. And then four and half years later, it hadn’t improved that much. They noticed however, that I was getting straight A’s in ROTC. So my teachers and administrators rolled my ROTC grades into my overall GPA, which came out to a 2.0. They told me to get out of there quick and go to the army. So I entered the U.S. Army as a brand new 2nd Lieutenant with a bachelors of science in geology and a 2.0 average, and they said, “We don’t think we’ll ever see you again.”
But now, I’m considered one of the greatest sons the City College of New York has ever had. They named a center after me – the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies, and my title is founding chairman and distinguished visiting professor. Unimaginable!
So I tell kids that it isn’t where you start in life; it’s where you end up and what it is you do along the way. Some of the greatest entrepreneurs we have, like Steve Jobs, didn’t finish college either. But they stuck with it. They never gave up. They never looked away. They always kept their eye on the ball. They always knew that if they worked hard, that if they devoted themselves to what they believed in, and if they got the additional education that was required, then they would be successful in life.
We also have to remember something else. High school drop outs are kids who drop out when they get to high school. But in fact many kids start dropping out in the second or third grade. They start dropping out, if when they show up for kindergarten or first grade, they haven’t been read to by somebody. They don’t know their colors, they can’t tell time, they have never been exposed to anything but crummy television, they have had nothing but principally fast food and not a good diet, and they come into school, but they don’t know that there’s anything wrong with them. How could they know? They’re just children. As one teacher said to me in a school in Washington D.C., “General Powell, they all show up the same way, their eyes are blazing, and they want to learn! ‘My gosh, I’m in school, I got my new schoolbag.’ But within a year, they realize they’re behind. They realize they don’t know as much as these other kids.”
There’s an immediate gap, and that gap lengthens over time unless you do something to fill it. And so we not only have to focus on keeping kids from dropping out of high school. We also have to get them ready for school in the first place: Head Start programs, early childhood nutrition, the education of mothers as to what they have to do to prepare their child to be educated. The education process begins the moment a child hears his or her mother’s voice and knows it’s his or her mother’s voice. Education begins with a bonding with the mother. Any time that it is broken, or it doesn’t work, or isn’t reinforced, we have a problem.
With Grad Nation and the American Promise Alliance, we’re focusing on what we think are the basics. Every child has to have responsible, caring adults in his or her life – ideally parents, aunts, or uncles. In the South Bronx neighborhood I grew up in, there were a lot of relatives in my extended family of Jamaicans. I had an aunt living in every tenement building as in the South Bronx, and they all seemed not to do anything but lean on a pillow, staring out on the street to catch one of us doing something wrong. And they were very good at it. Today we have the speed of the internet now, but the speed of the aunt net in the South Bronx was far more powerful.
We were told that we have expectations for you. We didn’t come on banana boats from Jamaica to Philadelphia and Ellis Island for you to stick something up your nose and not get your education. We don’t care if you get your education and go out and be a bus driver or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We care that you not embarrass us, you don’t shame us, you get an education, and you never do anything that disgraces the family. That was it. We have expectations for you.
Project H.O.M.E. helps youngsters believe in themselves and have expectations for themselves. It helps them realize the whole world is waiting for them. Perhaps the kids started out homeless or had difficulties in their life – these are challenges, and we’re here to help you get over them. Project H.O.M.E. helps with providing an adult presence in the life of every child.
The second thing America’s Promise works on is providing kids with safe places. Third, we ought to have a healthy start for our kids. It is an absolute disgrace that the United States does not have universal healthcare and especially healthcare for every single child in America no matter what it costs us. Most developed nations in the world have that kind of care. We should be able to do it.
And then the fourth part of America’s Promise is college access, making sure that every young person has an opportunity for education that makes them employable and marketable. And finally, we make sure that every youngster has an opportunity to serve, to give back. Teach youngsters as early as you can that it is an obligation of citizenship to give to others, and that when they grow up and become wealthy or have the means, then they give back.
Alma and I are proud to have Project H.O.M.E.’s new college access program named after us. It is part of the process of making sure our country continues to move forward.
Jordan Iman-Washington and Tynisha Reid
Jordan Iman-Washington and Tynisha Reid are two high school students active in the teen program at Project H.O.M.E.’s Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs. Jordan has been attending the HLC-CTL since 2009. Tynisha is a 9th-grade student involved in the Culinary Arts Program.
On Thursday, May 5, 2011, Project H.O.M.E’s Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs (HLC-CTL) held their annual Teen Program Showcase. This Showcase gives the teens a chance to reveal their talents and show them off to staff, peers, and parents. There are a variety of classes offered at the HLC-CTL, including acting, film, Junior Music Executive, mock trial, culinary arts, and digital connectors. Students from these various classes worked on personal or group projects and revealed them for the first time at the Showcase.
“The importance of the Showcase is to exhibit to the parents the students’ progress,” says Jeffery Bond, manage of the Teen Program at the HLC-CTL. “If we are to be successful in our mission in having the kids receive post-secondary education, we need to partner with the parents, and the Showcase is a great way to do so.”
While many students performed at last week’s Showcase, the one presentation that seemed to have sparked everyone’s interest was the acting class’s rendition of “The Dating Game.” Honickman Learning Center students KhaVaughn Love, Nicholas Molten, Tyreek Elum, Daquan Richardson, and Aisha Sisco performed the hilarious skit, along with class instructor Mr. Larry McKenna. The acting class, which is held every Tuesday from 4:00-6:00 p.m., wrote the original skit.
An additional highlight for the night was Chef Chiwishi’s culinary arts class. During the ten-week cooking course, the culinary arts class studied the history of Caribbean food. Students learned the recipes and spices used to make some of the Caribbean’s most famous dishes such as jerk chicken and limeade, which they served to all of the guests during the Showcase.
We invite everyone who came to our last Showcase to join us at our next one on June 8 from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the Center. You are free to bring new guests to the Showcase. The theme of at our next Showcase is “SEED OF SUCCESS,” and each class will make a presentation that incorporates the theme of growing. The Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs are located at 1935 N. Judson Street in Philadelphia.
