Learning Centers Offer Teenagers Route to Success

Like other teens in her Orange neighborhood crammed with worn apartments and dollar store-anchored strip malls, Alex Gutierrez has choices.

Hang out on the corner or do homework. Ditch school or take that history test. Do things the easy way -- and fail -- or earn success through hard work.

With the help of the after-school learning center THINK Together, Alex had chosen the tougher route. A junior at Orange High School, Alex drew strength and motivation for years from the volunteers at the tutoring service down the street from her home.

The converted one-bedroom apartment, donated by the owner of the Highland Apartment complex, was home to one of 13 elementary and teen programs that Santa Ana-based THINK Together operates in four Orange County cities.

About 1,800 county students -- most of them English learners and the majority from low-income families -- go to the centers in Costa Mesa, Orange, Santa Ana and Tustin at least three days a week for homework help, mostly from local college students. They also have access to books and computers.

The organization received a $15,000 grant this year from the Los Angeles Times Holiday Campaign, which raises money for nonprofits in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

All of the center’s services are free.

“We are not here to simply teach the children to survive,” said Connie Linnert, director of the Orange elementary center. “We are here to steer them in the right direction and help them build bridges to a successful future.”

Because of a lack of funding, the organization closed two of its centers in November, including the teen facility in Orange. Community activists are trying to raise money to reopen the centers.

Alex had been going to the Orange center for help, mostly with history and literature, since sixth grade. The 16-year-old girl’s grades improved from Cs and Ds to straight A’s, and a career as an elementary schoolteacher is within sight.

“My parents are so busy that they can’t give me the support I need, and I couldn’t have gotten it anywhere else,” she said. “If it weren’t for this place, I wouldn’t be where I’m at right now.”

Before the center closed, Alex would go there about 3:30 and check on her 8-year-old sister, Perla, at the elementary center in a converted apartment next door. Then Alex buckled down to her homework until she finished every assignment.

At the tables around her, during a visit to the center before it closed, students in middle and high school slogged through their own work. Standing before six teenagers, a young woman gave a tutorial on essay writing.

Yorba Middle School seventh-grader David Valenzuela has trouble with math and used to come to the center four days each week.

“Everything got a lot harder in middle school, and sometimes I don’t get it,” said David, 12, an aspiring pediatrician. “The people here are really friendly and do everything they can to help me understand.”

Alex, attaching beads to a plastic coil to create a chemistry class model of a virus on one of her last visits, said she had found motivation at the center because she was surrounded by academically successful people.

“Lots of other kids waste their time after school, watching TV or whatever,” she said with disdain. “I’m here, doing my homework, because I know that I need to work to reach my goals.”

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