Report on New Orleans' Episcopal Neighborhood Center
Diocesan Press Service. August 6, 1970 [90-4]
Ernest B. Boynton, Jr.
(The following article describing the work of the Episcopal Neighborhood Center in New Orleans, La., was written by Ernest B. Boynton, Jr., a black writer who is on the staff of the Board of Missions of the United Methodist Church.)
NEW ORLEANS, La. -- Militant black rhetoric can't hold a candle to understanding the facts of life and learning how to deal with them.
This is the philosophy of a young black teacher in New Orleans who says: "Although many people find comfort in rhetoric, we must learn how to live with realities and to deal effectively with the realities."
As the counselor-teacher of the Episcopal Neighborhood Center in the Esplanade section of New Orleans, Mr. Clifton Davis has been testing that theory with measurable success since February, 1970.
The Center is operated as one facility in a large network of social services operated under the auspices of the Diocese of Louisiana.
Now 27 years old and a former U.S. Army machine gunner, Mr. Davis teaches at a nearby grade school during the day and works with the Neighborhood Center three afternoons a week.
He told of his feelings while watching a group of boys at play.
"You can read almost anything in the faces of the young under-privileged," he said, "but what is needed most is hope and assurance in the future."
He believes that for many of the youngsters in the area the major obstacle is that there is "no positive self image. " Or, there is "no father in the home, and if he is there he doesn't function as head of the household. "
" The kid on the street is not a problem," he said, "but each has a problem."
Another young black administrator in the Neighborhood Center, Mrs. Helen Stanwood, agreed. The director of the Center's Day Care Nursery, Mrs. Stanwood said:
" The name of the game for poor people -- white or black -- is self- confidence, not revenge. "
The bright yellow house at 1261 Esplanade Street -- a two-story multi- purpose plant with play area where children "uncounted" by society or those who simply want supplemental learning may come if they choose to -- may be one way to build a new thrust and get on with the care and education of children.
Since 1949 when the late Rev. Charles I. McGavern, rector of a downtown Episcopal Church in New Orleans, opened the Parish House doors to give the children of the neighborhood a place for supervised play, the Episcopal Neighborhood Center has been a place of Christian love given and received. In the mid-1950's the original site for the Center was torn down to make way for the new Mississippi River Bridge. It was temporarily housed at the Coliseum Place Baptist Church, and in 1966 the Center's programs were reactivated in the educational building of St. Anna's Episcopal Church in the Esplanade Community of New Orleans.
This section was chosen following a Diocesan survey that pointed up the fact that there is a high percentage of one-parent families among the area's poor blacks, poor whites and Mexican-Americans. Social services within the community are in- adequate in comparison to need, according to Mr. Woodrow W. Carter, consultant to the Experimental and Specialized Services of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church. The area is characterized by old fashionable-looking homes that once housed some of New Orleans' most affluent families. Many of the families in the area are poor. As many as 12 persons live in two or three room apartments.
Today, some 90 children enjoy the wholesome, Christian after-school environment at the Center. For some, this is the only place where they can form meaningful relationships with adults.
+ They are taught to play with robust competition, but with good sportsmanship in all games.
+ They work with paints, paper, paste and clay in a creative crafts program.
+ The older girls enjoy making simple garments for themselves in a weekly sewing class.
+ Occasional trips to the zoo or to explore a foreign ship in port offer excitement and adventure that the children might never know.
For five days a week, the neighborhood children may spend their afternoons at the Center instead of being left to amuse themselves on the street. The playground is open over the weekends.
Mrs. Ruth W. Gay, a professional social worker, with many years of experience in the field of social work practice and as an administrator, since early 1966 has served as Executive Director of Episcopal Community Services of New Orleans. She reports:
"The After-School Program has lived a precarious financial existence. The funds come in unevenly during the year; therefore, there is some uncertainty around planning and employment of staff. We need $15,000 to carry this program, to cover salaries, equipment, supplies and maintenance. "
Involving children and their families in program operation and decision making is a primary goal, Mrs. Gay said.
"We also see the Church and the Neighborhood Center as a new design for the delivery of social services by an Episcopal Church-related agency. "
Recognizing the need to develop some program for teenagers, the Center through the help of Mr. Davis is exploring ways to work with teenagers in the community. There is also deep concern around some of the critical identified unmet needs such as family planning, adult education, adolescent counseling, a full medical program for children in the After-School Program. The Center has the physical facilities for these programs, Mr. Carter explained, adding:
"There is little doubt that in time, the Church and the community will make every effort to develop the financial resources needed to implement these programs."
The major need of the youngsters of Esplanade (as in most poor areas) is for a good education and self-improvement opportunities. A wretchedly over- crowded local school system coupled with the deleterious effects of poor home and neighborhood environment prove major obstacles to success.
Therefore, as Mr. Davis says, most important for the learning atmosphere, Center attitudes are community attitudes. Black studies materials are taught and stimulate the young person's imagination through various learning games and pro- grams. The aim is not so much competence in specific subjects as self-knowledge and self-confidence, armed with which, the ghetto child, like any other, will often turn himself on, Mr. Davis said.
Just one example:
When John, aged 12, came to the Center early this year his reading ability was limited to his first name, printed. Though a sixth grader on paper, he had not frequented school on a regular basis. After several months of Center exposure he now attends a community school of his own volition, and works at the Center after school in a determined effort to catch up.
Another way of loosening up the young people and stimulating their interest, Mr. Davis said, has been through science puzzles and unfamiliar logic games, which brought children together in groups -- despite their original hesitation -- to sit at the same tables. The Center offers its services to the community without regard for race or religion.
On the other hand, the Neighborhood Center has helped some of the volunteers and part-time staffers to discover new personal opportunities and challenges, which has meant a re-evaluation of what they personally want to do in life vocationally.
The Rev. Robert Dodwell, rector of St. Anna's Episcopal Church, a half block from the Neighborhood Center, who serves as Program Director, is assisted by six part-time staff members, a social worker and several dedicated volunteers. The Tulane Graduate School of Social Work and the Delgado Vocation Rehabilitation Center use the Center as a laboratory for students.
The Center is a unique program that has overcome many of the difficulties that have caused others begun in such admirable earnestness and honesty, and pursued with marvelous self-sacrifice and determination, to fail. The program began by a careful look at the talents of the people who undertook it and a cool assessment of how those talents could best be put to use in the Esplanade Community.
Right from the start the Center set for itself strictly limited goals. No rushing in to the Esplanade with Messianic gusto. No frenetic effort to do anything and everything all at once. Rather, a firm, self-disciplined attempt to do a small, significant task and do it well.
Since the opening of the present-day Episcopal Neighborhood Center in March 1969 emphasis has been on developing two high priorities : The Day Nursery Program and the After-School Program. According to Mr. Carter, the Center seeks to promote the healthy growth and development, social and physical, of the total child by integrating a variety of staff skills in a partnership with the community to make available numerous direct services; to serve as an enabler in helping families utilize other available services, and to join the community in identifying unmet needs and to work creatively with it in developing new services.
As anyone engaged in this or similar programs is well aware, one of the major obstacles facing any administrator of community services today is funding. Due to the marked success and the notable achievements of Mrs. Gay and her quick-moving staff, the Episcopal Community Services, an agency of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, administers the Episcopal Neighborhood Center as well as some other programs. Formed in 1966, this new setup has enabled the Diocese to offer a coordinated program of help to children and parents and to meet their needs more effectively. The ministry of the Church is extended through these vitally needed services. Support comes from endowments and contributions, from individuals and Churches, as well as state and federal governments.
The Board of Directors of the Episcopal Community Services is an integrated group with broad representation of clergy, laymen and lay women. Committees have been established to work directly with the board, and Mrs. Gay as Executive Director is responsible for the total program complex of Episcopal Services. She works with the various program committees, reports to the Diocesan Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Iveson Batchelor Noland, D. D., and the Board of Directors.
Mrs. Gay was born in Plainfield, N.J., and attended Radcliffe College for two years and received a B.S. degree from New York University. She holds a Masters degree in Social Work from the Tulane Graduate School of Social Work. She worked for 20 years with the Louisiana State Department of Public Welfare, where she made a steady rise from case worker to administrator.
Mrs. Gay is undoubtedly a success -- in her profession and in the Church. She is an extraordinarily busy person with a well-stacked desk of reports, papers, urgent memos, etc., a continually ringing phone, and a very professional quick- moving staff. She is an intelligent person who can be a skillful diplomat, soothing a disgruntled employee or staffer with smiles and soft words. This diplomacy seems to be a key element, along with her great drive, to Mrs. Gay's success.
At the Neighborhood Center, the staff represents an unusual team of workers with a variety of skills and experiences. The cooperative collaboration of this team is reflected in the effective and exciting program now being developed at the Center.
Under the direction of Mrs. Stanwood, the Center's Day Nursery, which opened in March, 1969, and licensed by the Louisiana State Department of Public Welfare, is able to care for a total of 30 children between the ages of 2 ½ and 5. All the children come from homes where the mother is working. All parents pay a fee for their child, Mrs. Stanwood said, according to a fee scale geared to income and to the number in the family.
Most of the fees fall into the $4 to $6 a week bracket. If a family's gross income is less than $75 per week, the Center intercedes with the Department of Welfare to pay up to $10 per week for these children.
Mrs. Stanwood, who has training in social work education, is assisted by two full-time teacher-aides, a social worker, eight volunteers and a staff member to prepare meals. The teacher-aides were obtained through the federal Work Experience Program. They were paid by the federal government the first year. The following six months the salaries are shared by the federal agency and Episcopal Community Services. Following this period, it is expected that the local agency will assume the full responsibility for salaries.
A hot lunch is made possible by assistance from the Louisiana State Department of Education's School Food Service Program.
The After-School Program of the Center began in late 1966 in the Educational Building of St. Anna's Episcopal Church. Because of the need for more adequate accommodations, the Diocese purchased a property with a two-story building on it at a cost of $50, 000. This building, which also houses the Day Nursery, is dedicated as the McGovern Memorial Building, in honor of the founder of the Center and his wife who lost their lives in a plane crash in the Gulf of Mexico in 1959. In 1968 the United Thank Offering awarded a $40,000 grant to the Neighborhood Center for much needed renovations, improvements and air-conditioning.
As the After-School Program developed, it became apparent that more playground and facilities were needed to accommodate the large number of children enrolled in the program. The Diocese responded to these needs by purchasing a large $15,000 lot adjacent to the Center to be developed as a play area. Through a special contribution and a bazaar, $480 was raised for needed equipment for the playground.
The newest outreach of the Center is its tutorial educational program. A modest beginning was made early in 1970, under the direction of the rector of St. Anna's Church end volunteers from Tulane University. They organized a simple, structured program of tutoring and home-visiting, a structure that allowed much personal contact with strong, adult male figures, reasonable opportunities for recreational periods and above all a serious outlay of energy in realistic tutoring.
During the summer, Mr. Davis introduced a Black Studies course and an elementary science course.
"The tutoring program is purposely housed in the Church's (St. Anna's) education building," Mr. Carter explained. "It is hoped that this will demonstrate to other local Churches one way to use some of their idle structures for community service. "
Selection is made through several channels: Referral of candidates from the schools in the community, from various social agencies and also from the program's own community outreach phase. The youngsters want to get into the program, but the problem now is to find adequate funds to buy necessary teaching tools and equipment to make the program really effective.
It is significant to note that some of the funds for operating the Center come from the endowment income of the Gaudet Fund. In 1921, Mrs. Josephine Gaudet, a black, transferred her property in the Gentilly section of New Orleans to the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. Mrs. Gaudet had called her project "The Gaudet Normal and Industrial School. " The work consisted of an orphanage and a school. The school, however, had no fixed income and depended heavily upon volunteers, many of whom were Episcopalians. Eventually the land was sold and the income from sales invested, the income from which is used "in keeping with Mrs. Gaudet's concern for needy Negro children. "
The endowment income, estimated at around $70,000 annually, now underwrites a foster care project, day nursery, Cathedral tutorial program and scholarship grants to young black men and women.
Mr. Davis summed up the feeling of many when he said:
"It isn't easy to convince youngsters in a ghetto environment that with a little solid help they could lift themselves out of it. "
Mr. Davis feels it can be done. He himself was born and reared in a nearby black ghetto where he now teaches. You might say that the Center is a laboratory that says that it can be done.
The Louisiana State Vocational Rehabilitation Center has worked out an arrangement with the Center for patients interested in working with programs for children to be placed at the Center for training in action therapy. After a stated period of time, the Center prepares and submits an evaluation of the patient's potential and a suggested area of work.
The Episcopal Neighborhood Center is rapidly becoming a model of how an integrated organization in the deep South can work cooperatively for the development of man. In its brief history, individuals and organizations have called on the Center several times for different kinds of assistance. The Center must expand if it is to meet more of the acute needs of those not only just between 6 and 12, but also teenagers and adults.
A new elementary school, now under construction, and which will open in 1972, will put a heavy stress on present plant facilities unless money is found now to enable the Center to enlarge.
One ironic note hits a visitor to the Neighborhood Center upon learning that the building was used by its last owner as a private grant and aid school by whites who wanted to avoid sending their children to integrated schools. The change is dramatic.
Mrs. Gay and her staff are confident that the Center can continue to serve blacks, whites and Mexican-Americans for many more years to come in this new way.
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