WATTS : Project’s Day Care Center Eases Worries

Adrienne Harvey, 8, never much liked going to work with mom.

After finishing her homework, “I used to sit there, eat breakfast, eat lunch. . . . Sometimes I’d draw and color,” Adrienne said, recalling the days spent waiting for her mother, Janetta, to end her shift as program manager at Nickerson Gardens Residents Corp.

Those days are over. Adrienne is now one of 70 children who attend Nickerson Gardens’ recently opened SAGE Before and After School Child Care Center.

“I didn’t feel comfortable bringing (my children) to work. Now, I’m more relaxed,” said Janetta Harvey, a 10-year resident. “I can concentrate on my work, which is very important to me.”

The center is specifically designed to help the housing development’s single working mothers like Harvey, who must juggle her schedule to attend to the needs of Adrienne and her 12-year-old daughter.

The center is the brainchild of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who has advocated such centers for the six housing projects in her district. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the largest government contributor to the project, only had money for one.

“One of the biggest needs I have learned about in housing developments is a need for child care,” said Waters, who enlisted the help of more than a dozen federal, state and local agencies for the implementation of SAGE. “We have many single mothers who would like to get off of welfare and get a job or get an education, but they don’t have a place to take their children.”

The unemployment rate at Nickerson Gardens is 60%, compared to Los Angeles County’s 7.8%.

More than $1 million in public funding sources were used in the making of the center, including a contribution of $500,000 worth of prefabricated buildings from the state Department of Education. HUD awarded a $95,000 grant to the Black Women’s Forum, a nonprofit group that aims to empower black women economically and politically, to coordinate the implementation of the center.

Crystal Stairs, a nonprofit child development agency based in South Los Angeles, manages the center, which has 14 staff members. But in two or three years, management will be turned over to Nickerson Gardens residents, six of whom are undergoing training, said Gathoni Maina, the center’s director and an accomplished artist.

SAGE operates out of six bungalows. There are also two playgrounds and computers for the children, who are 5 to 12 years old. They are exposed to diverse cultures through art, dance and discussions, and are encouraged to participate in sports.

“SAGE believes in offering children a range of activities that will help children know how to make choices,” Maina said. “I grew up in Kenya and was exposed to many cultures. At the center, that’s what the children are learning, not just about the U.S.A, California or South-Central.”

In the art room, the walls, ceilings, tables--everything but the floor--are covered with the children’s handmade art projects.

They spend an average of three hours a day in this room, said Rosie Garcia, the center’s art teacher. “The concept here is hands-on art,” Garcia said. “We even have parents who come here and don’t want to leave.”

The center also has arranged for Loyola Marymount University students to tutor the children with their homework.

Dawn Hawkins, 30, a single parent of two, said she couldn’t afford private child care and believed she needed an education to better care for her children.

“If the center wasn’t here, I would be totally lost,” said Hawkins, who is pursuing a nursing degree at Southwest College. “I need this break. Now I don’t have to worry about (my children) at all.”