Since Jamia Perry, a 10-year-old fifth grader, has been coming to the Center of Hope at Thomasville, she has mastered the computer and is proficient enough in chess to teach it. “I am here every day after school,” she said while searching online for an educational website. “I love it here.”
That is what Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed wants to hear. When he was elected in 2009, he promised to open every city recreation center — most were shuttered — and enhance them enough to be Centers of Hope, with added programs in technology, character, fitness and academics.
To date, 22 of the centers have reopened and all 33 are running. Two of them, Thomasville and Adamsville, serve as pilot programs for the Centers of Hope, concept in partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta and Metro Atlanta YMCA.
On Wednesday, the Coca-Cola Foundation announced a $1 million grant to make the centers in Ben Hill and Pittsburgh pilot programs as well. The grant will also be used to expand fitness and health programming in six others, to create a total of 10 facilities that will be identified as Centers of Hope.
Such corporate gifts have been crucial for the program. Donors include Coke, ($2 million), Wells Fargo, ($1.5 million), Turner Broadcasting System, ($750,000) Converse ($200,000) and Delta Air Lines, ($50,000). U.S. Micro Corporation and Home Depot have also pledged help.
At Wednesday’s announcement, Reed talked about the need, reflecting on how he and some city council members grew up in Atlanta playing in recreation centers. Now, “We have 700-900 kids every week who have a place to go that is safe, clean and healthy until 8 at night when their mom and dad get home,” Reed said.
By 2008, severe budget cuts forced the city to close 22 of Atlanta’s 33 recreation centers. At the time, candidate Reed made that a campaign issue, vowing to open all of them.
“What I saw was two-thirds all of the recreation centers that used to be teeming with kids were closed,” said Reed, who grew up playing in John A. White Park in southwest Atlanta. “How can we, in a city that claims to be too busy to hate, leave these recreation centers shuttered in communities that need them the most?”
The city spent $3.7 million to open all the centers, and Reed has always said the enhancements would be funded by philanthropy. Though he had a goal of getting all the recreation centers open, he has no set timetable for adding Centers of Hope.
One of the centers that were closed was Thomasville, which is hard to believe now, considering how busy it was Wednesday.
“When the recreation centers closed it was a reminder of the disinvestment of the community,” said George A. Dusenbury, commissioner of the department of parks, recreation and cultural affairs. “We have gone to a tangible investment and the overlying message is somebody cares.”
Joshua Dickerson, the Thomasville center director, said the day it re-opened in 2009 there were eight kids enrolled. Now there are 208 kids in the program, and at least 100 of them come every day.
“This gives the kids a place to go,” said Latasha Robinson, who has four grandchildren in the program. “We all know how violent this area used to be and can be. This place keeps some of the kids out of trouble, because it gives them something to do every day.
Only educational sites are allowed on the computers, and the video games attached to the big-screen televisions are dancing and physical activity games. The walls are adorned with mixed-media art. The nine- to 12-year-old boys are reading “A Lesson Before Dying,” by Ernest Gaines, in a class taught by Larry Miller, whom they call Dr. Miller because he is working on his Ph.D. at Clark Atlanta University.
Kids check themselves into specific classes, and they run their own assemblies.
All of this between a snack when they arrive and dinner before they leave.
“Snacks are mandatory,” Dickerson said.
At Thomasville, everything is on a schedule, and so regimented that even the days have names:
Yusef Bell Monday.
Latonya Wilson Tuesday.
Aaron Wyche Wednesday.
Aaron Jackson Thursday.
Joseph Bell Friday.
None of the kids are old enough to remember those names. Few adults do. They are the names of some of the 28 kids killed during the Atlanta Child Murders. Dickerson said the names are a tribute and a stark reminder.
“It is a reminder for the staff about why this program is important,” Dickerson said: “These kids.”
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