Sullivan Impact Center Info Sheet

The Reverend Leon Sullivan Community Impact Center

“LITERACY GAMERS” and THE REVEREND LEON SULLIVAN COMMUNITY IMPACT CENTER At the corner of Broad and Venango Streets, in the heart of North Philadelphia, a project is taking shape that will have a far-reaching impact on a neighborhood ready for reinvestment. It will honor a visionary leader who made this Nicetown-Tioga neighborhood the birthplace of a movement that reached across the nation and around the world. It will extend his remarkable legacy into the 21st century to empower and uplift members of this community today. This will be the Reverend Leon Sullivan Community Impact Center.

Called to Serve CDC (CTS) is leading the effort to turn this vision into reality by renovating a currently vacant historic church building – the Zion Baptist Church Annex – which served for many years as the Zion Education Annex. Founded by Rev. Sullivan in the 1960s, and in operation until 2014, the Annex was home to more than a dozen active programs that served the community, from a childcare center and after-school program to a church member-operated library and a college and career guidance counseling office with social events on the weekends.

CTS’s vision is to reactivate the Annex building, bringing it back to life as a community hub, with a constellation of diverse programs promoting the well-being of the Nicetown-Tioga neighborhood - an historically under-resourced community. At the heart of the community programs to be offered in the Sullivan Community Impact Center is the BriDDge Career Pathways Program—"Bridging the Digital Divide,” which will tap the booming interest in Esports to attract youth from the neighborhood and beyond to the Center and into a pathway leading to college scholarships and careers.

“LITERACY GAMERS” will be a key component of the Esports program, which will be used as a gateway to teach students how to code, enabling them to develop a gaming app suite designed to improve literacy among young children. The intent is to combat the low literacy rates that are prevalent among children in Philadelphia, and especially in the Tioga-Nicetown community, where two out of every three children are reading below grade level by fourth grade. “Literacy Gamers” is rooted in CTS’s belief in “collective impact” for solving community problems – empowering people within the community by involving them in the creation of solutions to those problems.

The Sullivan Community Impact Center will honor Rev. Leon Sullivan’s legacy by showing that progress is possible and advancing a vision of redevelopment that is focused on growth from within – progress that benefits current residents rather than progress that leads to displacement and gentrification.

In order to return the Annex to a vital community hub, CTS is seeking philanthropic support to build a circle of donor partners committed to their vision. This support will represent an investment in the truest sense. The return will come not in the form of dollar dividends, but possibilities created. This is a project about uplifting a community. It is about economic empowerment. And it is about the enduring vision of Rev. Leon Sullivan. In his name and inspired by his spirit, we ask that you join us in this effort.

For more information about Rev. Leon Sullivan, CTS’s plans for the Sullivan Community Impact Center, and ways in which to support this effort, please contact Rev. Michael Major at 215-605-1137