Don't Let DC Close the "Gate" to a Better Future For Low-Income Kids
There are numerous things for low-income elementary and middle school kids in southeast Washington, DC to do at the City Gate Merrick Center after-school program.
They can unwind with a basketball game or musical chairs, enjoy a wholesome snack in a safe atmosphere, volunteer at an assisted-living center, talk to college students about college life and how important it is to stay in school, or even play a game of 'Math Bingo', which was shown in a recent study to improve the math proficiency of 94 percent of participants by 50 percent or more.
But lately, the options for these kids have changed, after the Merrick Center had to close because DC’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education has failed to pay CityGate the $60,000 it was promised a year ago as well as an additional $15,000 more recently.
What's left for these kids to do?
- Head home, many to single-parent households and/or public housing complexes.
- Stay home alone (remember, these are kids ages 5-12) waiting for their parents to get home from full-time jobs.
- Walk around in neighborhoods with some of the highest crime rates in the entire city (Ward 8, where most of the program's participants live, is only a tenth of DC's population, but represents 40% of the city's annual teen murders).
- Go hungry.
Carol Scott explains in the Education blog how waiting for promised funds from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education has slowly drained City Gate of its resources: "They keep getting assurances from D.C. that the money will come," Scott wrote, "but it hasn't."
The after-school program, which undoubtedly brings peace of mind to working parents and has been called a "lifeline" for the neighborhood's poorest kids, had to close its doors last week because, put simply, it could not pay its bills.
Call on DC leaders to ensure that Kids Don't Go Hungry Due to Bureaucratic Inaction.
The funds in dispute were promised directly by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education to City Gate, and we supposed to be transferred at the beginning of the summer, 2010, to help support a comprehensive summer day camp as an extension of their after school program. For bureaucratic reasons, the money was set to be filtered through the nonprofit Youth Engaged for Success (YES), a grant recipient of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education. While it waited for the funds, City Gate's resources dwindled. The nonprofit even had to take loans just to pay staff at the end of the summer.
When YES failed to meet all of its grant requirements (which was no fault of City Gate, a nonprofit unrelated to YES), the funds were denied, "presumably... returned to the federal treasury." Since then the Office of the State Superintendent of Education has continuously reassured City Gate that they would receive the money, but simply has not come through on their promise. Had the funds been given at the allotted time, the doors of the Merrick Center would not be closed today.
City Gate founder Rev. Lynn Bergfalk told DC radio show The Fight Back that it's time "to raise our voices on behalf of people who really have no voice. And we have got to say for kids in Ward 8 in poor neighborhoods, or wherever it is that really doesn’t have a place at the table, ‘Look, when these billions or millions of dollars are being allocated for a variety of projects… don’t forget that there is nothing more precious than the lives of… children in poor communities.”
If you believe the children of southeastern DC deserve a safe place to learn, grow, and play after school, add your voice to the chorus by signing the petition below today.
Ashley Eberhart
spent summer 2010 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her interests include Native American economic development and social entrepreneurship.
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