About the Promise Neighborhood Initiative
Make Your Mark
The South Philadelphia communities of Point Breeze and Grays Ferry—spearheaded by local community-based organization Universal Companies—are coming together in an effort to dramatically improve the educational outcomes and overall life prospects of their children. Both of these communities share a rich history and many positive attributes. They also share an education system and network of other supportive services that is struggling to provide the kind of high-quality services and outcomes that this community deserves and demands.
100% by 2020—or [100x20] in short hand—encapsulates the bold vision of the PointGrays Campus planning initiative. When all those students (currently second graders living in Point Breeze and Grays Ferry neighorhoods) are able to turn their tassels ten years from now, they’ll be marking their own personal achievements and transition from candidate to graduate, and our own accomplishments as a community.
As part of an ongoing effort by residents to better control their own destiny and introduce gamechanging reforms within their community, a network of local stakeholders came together in 2009 to look comprehensively at education and related service delivery. Out of this effort came a successful application to the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhood initiative.
In the coming weeks, as each of our workgroups begin to arrive at solutions to the seemingly intractable educational challenges our children face, we will reach out to different stakeholders to request support. Help us further conceptualize and bring to life what it will mean to live on campus. The PointGrays Campus.
This federal program is a bold new initiative designed to break the cycle of generational poverty in communities like Point Breeze and Grays Ferry. Inspired by the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone, President Obama has laid out his personal commitment to alleviating poverty with comprehensive placebased approaches like the Promise Neighborhoods initiative that support children from birth through college. In 2010, a nationally competitive round of one-year planning grants was announced. Out of 339 applications submitted, the Universal proposal was one of just 21 awarded funding. All grantees are given one year and between $400,000 and $500,000 to develop a comprehensive plan to address their most pressing neighborhood challenges.
You can play a vital role in our planning process for PointGrays Campus. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, but just imagine the potential rewards: Graduation Day 2020 filled with hope, promise and pride.
“Your efforts will be aimed at breaking a vicious cycle of intergeneratio nal poverty by providing a cradleto-career continuum of educational and community supports that gives poor children the opportunity to achieve long-term economic success.” —Promise Neighborhoods Institute 2010
PointGrays Campus
Our Approach
The PointGrays Campus Promise Neighborhood planning area includes two communities, each with its own identity and rich history:
While embracing a place-based, comprehensive approach to planning, and incorporating lessons learned from other comprehensive communitychange initiatives across the nation, we’re strengthening it even further with a singular commitment to and focus on our children’s healthy development and school success.
•P oint Breeze (Broad Street on the east, 25th Street on the west; Snyder Avenue on the south; and Washington Avenue on the north) •G rays Ferry (25th Street on the east; the Schuylkill River on the west; Snyder Avenue on the south; and Grays Ferry Avenue on the north) Included within these boundaries are 50,000 residents, along with two elementary schools, five K-8 schools, one eighth-grade-only school, one middle school, and one high school. Collectively, these schools serve 6,000 to 7,000 children annually.
Everything we do will be organized and prioritized around this focus. Our process starts and ends with the children and families we are planning for. We begin by familiarizing ourselves with the experiences, needs and dreams of the children and families we want to affect with our solutions. We seek to listen to and understand what they want. Then we strive to retain this point of view of the world throughout our entire planning process. Our five workgroups are named after distinct developmental stages. Their scope includes the passage of our children through critical transition points. This is why each workgroup is responsible for at least one age cohort that overlaps with that of another workgroup.
Members of both communities share a great deal of pride about where they come from, and during our planning process, we will acknowledge, support and leverage this community spirit and sense of place. But what they also share are similar yearnings: for safer streets, for better schools and more opportunities for their children. Moving forward with this planning effort will require confronting and overcoming some harsh realities. Both Point Breeze and Grays Ferry have long struggled under the yoke of stifling poverty and all of the negative indicators which too often accompany it: homelessness, low academic attainment, violence, poor quality of housing, a significant amount of vacant properties, substance abuse and poor health outcomes that have come to be associated with the worst of our urban centers.
“By [authentic engagement], we mean conducting honest, ongoing and respectful dialogues with community members, truly hearing what is said, deciding what to do based on what is learned, and involving residents in implementing the plan they’ve helped develop.” — Promise Neighborhoods Institute 2010
A Comprehensive, Place-Based, Child-Centered Developmental Approach to Planning
Workgroup
“Sprouts”
“Kids”
“Pre-Teens”
“Teenagers”
“Young Adults”
Age range
Pre-natal, Infants, Toddlers, Pre-K
Elementary School
Middle School
High School
College
Critical Transition
CRITICAL TRANSITION
CRITICAL TRANSITION
CRITICAL TRANSITION
CRITICAL TRANSITION
CRITICAL TRANSITION
Ready for Kindergarten
Ready for Middle School
Ready for High School
Ready for College
Ready for Continuted Education or Work