Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
After work, New Yorkers wine and dine, exercise, attend classes – or just go home. The city’s children, however, have more important things to do after school, as this year’s Partnership for After School Education Awards demonstrated.
This organization, a support and advocacy center for more than 1,400 after-school programs in the region, selected five leaders in the field to receive the PASEsetter award, which comes with a $5,000 grant to their programs. Five hundred people attended the ceremony at Pier 60, helping to raise $500,000.
“Too many people see after-school programs as ‘babysitting in bulk’ or just a place for students to do their homework. Our programs develop young people into effective leaders who make their communities a better place to live,” award recipient Kenyatta Funderburk, who heads two leadership development programs at Inwood House, said.
The informal mixture of work and play in afterschool programs helps students to discover themselves and their passions. “There’s so much to learn, and only so much teachers can do in one school day,” another awardee, Frank Signorello, of the New York Hall of Science, said. The New York Hall of Science programs train children to be scientists. The museum also hires high school students to work as “explainers.”
Art programs at the Point Community Development Corporation have steered children away from drugs and gangs and toward college degrees. As Emilia Wiles of the Point noted in her acceptance speech, the programs have awakened activism in Bronx’s teenagers, who have worked on a national campaign against asthma and air pollution.
The recipients reflected the diversity of New York City’s children and educators. Another winner, Lin Xiang Ding, works with Chinese students at the Chinese Methodist Center’s Mei Wah School, where she hardly ever speaks English. And Helena Yordan of the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families primarily uses Spanish in her job, leading an after-school program at P.S./M.S. 279 in the Bronx.
Ms. Yordan focused on the need to tailor programs to children’s backgrounds. “We need to be sure that we are providing them with educational and social experiences that reflect their culture, traditions, language, and their roots,” she said.
Her program also invites parents in once a week, where they work with their children to create a storybook. The program “helps parents enhance their own skills and develop a stronger educational relationship with their children,” Ms. Yordan said.
The event gave just a hint of the commitment and enthusiasm possessed by the partnership’s executive director, Janet Kelley, and chairman, Alison Overseth.
