'I Think I Can'

The chief hope of the teen-age girls who came to our afternoon program at Sojourners Neighborhood Center last winter was that they would make it through school.

They were up against great odds. Many of the children in our neighborhood of Columbia Heights come from homes in which a single mother with few resources struggles to keep her family together in an over-crowded apartment. Money and energy go toward the basics: food, clothing, heat. Parents anguish that they cannot provide their sons and daughters with all the support they would like to, and the children repeatedly fail in school or are passed on without mastering the basic skills of their grade level.

One of our responses to this situation was to launch into a summer program that included a week of camp, Christian education, group and individual educational activities, arts and crafts, a reading program, library trips, and a class on how to understand the newspaper.

The children responded with enthusiasm. Rashidi, not yet in kindergarten, could not tell time or differentiate days, but he came promptly every morning, full of questions and ready to learn.

We had virtually no discipline problems with the 55 children who participated, and twice as many came on the days devoted to study as arrived to take part on the days for "fun." Nine-year-old Theodore explained, "The work we do here helps us because the only time we do work is in the winter time, and if we do it in the summer we can remember some stuff we did in the winter and be ready to go back to school." He was among the many who sat for hours quietly working on math or spelling games alone or in small groups.

As the study program continued, the children began to voice their hopes for the future, although they did so guardedly, as if they knew their desires might evaporate like dreams so easily can. Anthony, 8, announced, "I came here to draw because some day I might be an artist." And Latacha said over and over, "I want to be a teacher so bad."

But it was not all work. Excitement mounted when creative projects were introduced: constructing games, baking cookies, making Michael Jackson puppets. In the midst of the fun, we learned of the children's fears and struggles with living in the neighborhood. They were glad to be out of the house with something to do and off the street, away from the "bad" kids on the block. Dominique joked, but meant it when he said, "It keeps me out of trouble."

When the program ended for the summer, the children faced what seemed to them a long and difficult gap before school began in the fall. We adults, however, were grateful for the break.

LAST AUGUST I returned from a few days of retreat wondering if I could again command the energy and enthusiasm to start over with an ongoing after-school program in the fall. One of my tasks on my first day back was to visit 10-year-old Trisha, who is a regular participant in the summer program and has no phone. I wanted to let her know about plans for a special library trip that week and about the after-school program. I took a friend with me to visit Trisha; we approach the block in which she lives only in twos.

As we entered her unkempt and decaying apartment building, at least eight people sitting on the inside steps, who were in various non-functional states, attempted to make a path for us. When we asked for Trisha, one man offered us an escort and staggered down the hall. The image of a secretary ushering people to see someone prestigious flashed into my mind. The contrast with this inner-city version of the same was startling.

In response to our knock, the door was guardedly opened, and we explained who we were. Entering, we met Trisha's mother for the first time. The impact of the apartment was almost overwhelming. The thick August heat was stifling, and the room was bare except for a table and chairs and three young children alternately tumbling underfoot and clinging to their mother.

After we had told her about the library trip and mentioned the fall after-school program, Trisha's mother repeated over and over, "Thank you for helping my daughter; thank you for bothering to come." Trisha was delighted that we had visited and had met her mother. I knew then that I had the energy for the fall, and my commitment to Trisha and the many children like her was renewed.

During the break between the summer program and fall, Rashidi and Wanda stopped by the Neighborhood Center several days a week to be read to. Their favorite story was about a little blue train whose dream was to reach the top of a very long hill as it pulled a cargo of toys to the children on the other side of the mountain. As the train tried and tried, it chanted, "I think I can, I think I can."

As I walk through the neighborhood and am greeted by the children, I realize that we now have a whole new population of friends. Our vision of supporting the children has broadened with the initiation of the after-school program. We have a long way to go, with many prayers and much work ahead, but I am encouraged with Rashidi and Wanda as together we believe, "We think we can, we think we can."

Gayle Turner was a member of Sojourners Community and was director of children's programs at Sojourners Neighborhood Center when this article appeared.