Sharon Norris has lived in the Sandtown-Winchester area for the past 40 years. She remembers the former funeral home owner and neighbor activist for whom the George G. Kelson Elementary/Middle School is named.
“I?ve seen this how this community has changed over the years,” Norris said Tuesday at the opening of a community resource center in the school library. “And it hasn?t changed for the better. Schools have closed and people have moved out to the county and everything has spread out.”
Norris, along with other parents, school officials and a new generation of community leaders, hope the resource center, a Enterprise Community Partners Inc. project, will bring a fragmented neighborhood together around the school.
Enterprise, a nonprofit headquartered in Columbia, generally works on affordable housing issues but received support from nearly a dozen partners, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Baltimore Women?s Giving Circle, Constellation Energy Group Inc., the France-Merrick Foundation, Legg Mason, Towson University and the Wieler Family Foundation, in beginning the community school initiative in West Baltimore.
The center, open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, should help local families in a wide range of areas, including immunizations and parenting, computer, General Equivalency Diploma and literacy classes. It also serves as a referral service, guiding people to appropriate heath, mental health, job, legal and counseling agencies if need be.
Principal Kevin Parson said outside issues can affect children?s performance in the classroom and the resource center can alleviate problems leading to late enrollment or poor attendance, for example.
The program at Kelson has about a $210,000 budget for the next two years. Enterprise senior program director Tina Hike-Hubbard said they are hoping to open another center in nearby William Pinderhughes Elementary for the 2007-08 school year.
