The Sandy B. Muller Breast Cancer Foundation: Taking Some of the Worry out of Breast Cancer

Sandy Muller counts the blessings that saw her through her personal journey with breast cancer: She and her family were financially secure, so she could give up her accounting practice when she became too sick to work.  She had a devoted husband who took on the cooking and the shopping, walked the dog, did all the other household chores, and stayed with her through every doctor’s appointment and chemotherapy treatment.  A close circle of friends shopped for the clothes she needed after her mastectomy, brought in food to last a full weekend, and took her to physical therapy. Grateful for her recovery and for the enormous support that carried her through the most difficult experience of her life, Sandy vowed somehow to give back.

The direction her largesse would take became apparent when she heard about a 29-year-old woman diagnosed with breast cancer and fired from her job.    Sandy met many other women less fortunate than she as well.  “They were not only struggling with their diagnosis but worried: how am I going to pay my rent?  How am I going to work if I’m sick?  

“This is where the need was,” Sandy explained.  La Liga Contra el Cancer underwrites treatment for women in need.  The Cancer Support Community provides emotional support, exercise, and seminars on all types of cancer.  But no one was paying the rent for a single mom too sick to work.

The need for this assistance is enormous. Even if people can cover their expenses under ordinary circumstances, cancer changes the equation. The $50 copayment for a test or $100 copayment for a medication can deplete a family’s resources.  According to 2006 research by USA Today, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health, 25% of families affected by cancer spent at least some of their savings on costs imposed by their illness.  One in eight had to borrow money. 

Those with health insurance felt the pinch as they incurred heavy copayments, discovered their insurance companies refused pay for some aspects of treatment, and lost income because their illness forced them to cut back on hours or take leaves of absence. In the 2006 study, 20% of those with health insurance used up all or most of their savings, 10% borrowed money from family, and 9% were contacted by a collection agency.  For those without insurance the numbers were higher.   Fifty percent used all or most of their savings, 40% were unable to pay rent or buy food, 6% filed for bankruptcy.  Compared to those with insurance, those without were five times more likely to miss or delay treatment because of their inability to pay.

Thus in 2008 Sandy Muller created the Sandy B. Muller Breast Cancer Foundation to help patients undergoing treatment meet critical expenses such as rent, electricity, transportation to and from medical appointments, and childcare.  She spent the first nine months setting up the foundation – obtaining  501 (c) (3) status; filing with the State of Florida; getting a logo, website and brochure designed; having brochure, cards and stationary printed; putting together a board of directors and advisory board.  She spent the next year fundraising.  As money began to come in, she developed the application process and sought referrals from physicians and organizations that work with breast cancer patients. The Foundation made its first client grant in November 2009.
Applicants for help from the Foundation must be residents of Miami-Dade County. They must currently be undergoing breast cancer treatment and living at or below the $37,148 median income for the County.   To verify financial need, applicants submit tax returns and other documents.  To verify medical credibility, they submit a physician’s letter stating diagnosis, treatment plan, and dates of treatment.  Board vice-president, Linda Marraccini, M.D., reviews all medical documents.  Sandy, with her accounting background, reviews the financial documentation and interviews the applicants.  Much of the assessment, she says, is subjective and drawn from the interview.

The grants are given after all government and other community resources have been exhausted.  While the size and duration of grants vary, they average $400 for three and a half months.  The Foundation always pays the bill directly to the payee to ensure that the grant goes where it is intended.

“She [Sandy] really saved me,” said Kimberly, the single mother of two children, 11 and 15. Unable to work since May 2011, when she was first diagnosed, Kimberly obtained Section Eight subsidized housing, food stamps, and Medicaid.  Still, she couldn’t cover her phone bill. The Foundation paid for that, permitting Kimberly to stay in touch with her daughters during a lengthy hospital stay and run her household from a hospital bed.

The emotional support she got from Sandy was equally precious.  “Once they find out you have cancer, a lot of so-called friends don’t call.  They can’t handle it,” Kimberly said. She called the Foundation her “sisterhood,” always there when she was “down and out.” 
Other recipients of Foundation assistance agree.  “Sandy’s help was more than money. She called me often, asked how am I doing.  She helped me a lot,” said Carol, whose husband, Martin, acknowledges that although Carol is a strong woman, the cancer beat her up.

Carol is a homemaker with two young children.  Martin designs commercial irrigation systems for a landscape architect.  In the face of the recession, his work was cut to 25 hours a week, and he was forced to drop the family’s health insurance. Then Carol was diagnosed with cancer.   Her treatment was underwritten, but expenses piled up. While Carol underwent chemotherapy, she was in bed for days and had to hire an after-school caregiver for the children.   Costly medications for the side effects of treatment further depleted resources.  The family moved to a smaller apartment but still could not afford the rent.  The Foundation helped, paying $650 a month for two months.
“I am more than grateful,” said Martin. “It gave me a little peace of mind, room to think.”  

Asked what he would have done if the Foundation had not helped him, Martin replied, “Ask for a loan from a friend. I don’t know. Sell water at the intersection.
“Thank God she helped me,” he said, relief palpable in his voice.

Since funding began in November 2009, the Foundation has assisted 60 women with a combined $78,000. The Foundation began fundraising with a launch event at Bloomingdales, which raised $10,000. The Board subsequently established sponsorship relationships other stores, restaurants, and organizations, and they hold frequent fundraising events.  In 2011, they were the recipients of a $53,000 gift from the Elekta Corporation. The Foundation budget – comprised 13% from grants, 16% from events, and 71% from individual and corporate donations during the fiscal year the Elekta gift was received -- increases every year. To date they have been able to say yes to every qualified applicant.

A true grassroots venture, the Foundation has a working board, no paid staff, and miniscule overhead. In setting up the organization, Sandy’s husband, an attorney, took care of all legal work.  A friend donated graphic artwork. Another friend discounted printing.  Sponsors underwrite the special events. Sandy, who does all the administrative work, operates out of a home office. The Board secretary, a CPA, files the organization’s tax return.  Other directors donate services as needed. 

Sandy B. Muller Breast Cancer Foundation
P.O. Box 565371
Miami, FL 33256
Phone: 305-255-1385
Fax: 305-255-5304
www.sandybmullerbreastcancerfoundation.org

Casa Valentina: Living, Learning, Growing

Casa Valentina resident Stacia[*] states forthrightly, “I’m a striver.”  A senior in high school, she works summers and during Christmas break.  She does sign language, is interested in fashion, and feels passionate about Navy ROTC.  After graduation, she plans to  attend community college, complete a degree in criminology at FSU,  go into the military and then work for the FBI.  Articulate and eager to take on any challenge, Stacia readily admits her attitude was not always so positive.   She used to have low self esteem, did not understand why people wanted to help her, did not trust that help, and openly rebelled.  From age 12, Stacia  had lived in a foster care shelter home.   

“The State is a terrible parent,” said Chelsea Wilkerson, former executive director of Casa Valentina.  While some foster parents are nurturing and caring, most are not.    Children can be moved abruptly from placement to placement and school to school several times a year.  Commonly, they grow through adolescence feeling unloved and insecure.  Rarely does anyone guide their education or help them develop a viable path to a career.  Most do not learn how to express dissatisfaction effectively or resolve conflicts effectively peaceably.  They do not know how to budget money, cook a meal, make a doctor’s appointment, or read a help wanted ad.   And at age 18, they’re on their own.

For girls, the problem is especially severe because of their vulnerability to violence and sexual abuse.  Girls, more than boys, tend to feel deeply, need to feel appreciated, are nurturers.  Not surprisingly, many become mothers when they are still children themselves. But if a vulnerable 18-year-old girl is educated and persuaded to delay childbearing, she will be better able to protect herself and her family. 

And so Casa Valentina opened in 2005 to provide quasi-supervised independent living for girls aging out of foster care. Twelve young women living in two buildings (in five furnished two-bedroom apartments and two studios) interact with three warm, fun-loving professional staff on a daily basis and gradually gather the skills, insights and emotional maturity that eluded them previously.

While some girls decide to move into Casa Valentina 6 months, a year or more after aging out of foster care, many arrive on their 18^th birthday. A staff member picks up the new resident, throws her belongings, often tied up in garbage bags, into the car and drops them off at the two-bedroom apartment she will share with another Casa Valentina  girl.  Then it’s off to Target to pick out bedding and other basic necessities.  For many, this is the first time they have ever been able to select their own sheets and make other choices about what they’d like in their rooms.  For many it’s also the first time they’ve had a room to call their own.  The day culminates at TG Fridays or Chiles for birthday dinner.  The staff is great, but they are strangers, and the girls tend to be tearful and scared.

The girls who choose to live at Casa Valentina must be in school full-time.  Some, especially if they are already in college, also hold part time jobs.  In addition, they must meet individually with staff once a week for mentoring, and they must attend weekly life skills sessions. So there is imposed structure to their day and their week.   But the life skills programming, which touches on nutrition, financial literacy, self-defense, skincare, and more, is the least of what they derive from the Tuesday meetings.  More valuable are having supper together before the presentation, building friendships, sharing experiences.

In every facet of life at Casa Valentina it’s personal interaction that makes the biggest impact on the girls’ development and maturation.  As a consequence of their frequent moves, the girls are, on average, two years behind in school when they move in. The majority are reading and doing math at elementary school levels.  Because of the constant moves and the case workers’ excessive case loads, the girls don’t communicate well, and they lack basic everyday abilities --  how to address an envelope, look for a job in the newspaper,  read a unit price card in the supermarket,  make a doctor’s appointment. They have needs in every area: activating their Medicaid cards, filling prescriptions, doing the laundry, registering for school, getting a money order or writing a check.  Many have not seen a physician or a dentist in a year or more and have untreated STDs.  Although Casa Valentina will not accept anyone who uses drugs or alcohol  or who has acute psychiatric needs, many also have mental health issues.

And so, the problems are tackled one by one, one on one. To overcome their academic deficits, the girls have tutors – private school teachers, university graduate students, and other professionals who understand basic adult remedial education.  They also attend weekly study halls, where volunteers help the girls complete assignments, write papers, and study for tests.

As for life skills, staff takes each girl to the grocery store and the bank, helps her with the laundry, cooking and cleaning.    The girl listens as a staff member calls to make her a doctor’s appointment so she will know how to do it next time.  When she was in foster care and needed to see a doctor, a case manager made the appointment and a transporter delivered her alone to the office.  Now, the same staff person who made the appointment accompanies her to the doctor’s office and advocates on her behalf with the physician and office staff.  If the wait is long, the girl might be inclined to have a tantrum or leave.  But the Casa Valentina staff models better behavior; she approaches the receptionist to say, “Excuse me. We’ve been here for an hour and a half. How much longer is the wait?”  With the staff serving as role model, mentor and instructor, the girls gradually learn how to stand their ground and defend their rights without offending others, navigate difficult situations,  express their thoughts and feelings,   and deal with the practical elements of everyday life.

It takes about a year for each girl to get stabilized – to do her own shopping, get herself up and to school consistently and on time, make her stipend checks last the full month.    After  one year, some of the girls move from their two bedroom shared apartment into one of the studios, where they live alone.  Almost all move on after two years.

Two year resident Kalisha*, now 24, is ready to move out.  In foster care from age 11, she dropped out of high school at 17.  “Moving around affects us in school,” She said. “We’re scared. We don’t know anyone and we become a loner.  It made staying in school too difficult.” 

At 18, when Kalisha aged out, she lived with a cousin for six months.  When that didn’t work out, she took a place of her own.  But she quickly recognized she needed guidance and support. Since moving into Casa Valentina, Kalisha has graduated from high school and is now studying at Miami-Dade College.  Although math is difficult for her, she aspires to a degree in accounting.  “Math helps you do things in a smarter way,” she maintains.

Outcomes for Casa Valentina residents are well above those for other former Miami-Dade County foster youth.  Sixty-eight percent earned high school diplomas, compared to 39%[†].  Ninety two percent  delayed childbearing, compared to 66%.  Fifty-four percent were employed while attending school full time, compared to 31%.

Casa Valentina’s statistics have steadily improved, and Chelsea Wilkerson, the former ED, believes the trajectory will continue. She readily acknowledges that Casa Valentina has suffered its growing pains, in part because the staff had little research to build upon when planning the venture.  Just 25 years old, the field of independent living offers no evidence-based best practices.  So the first five years were marked by trial and error.   The board initially thought they could partner with Charlee, which provides care for youngsters up to age 23 who are in or have aged out of foster care, to provide the support services residents needed. But they quickly learned that Casa Valentina residents needed much more intensive care than Charlee could offer.  Another problem: The girls were having trouble coming to terms emotionally with the enormous change taking place in their lives.  Their adjustment improved dramatically when the staff adopted the Andrus Foundation’s Transitions Framework, which  helps people distinguish characteristics of their former situation from those of their new situation and adapt their feelings and behavior accordingly.

So successful has Casa Valentina been that, in partnership with the Camillus House and Our Kids, it opened its first residence for boys in April 2011.  The eight-apartment building houses a program modeled on Casa Valentina’s.  In addition, although girls may not be pregnant when they move into Casa Valentina or stay on there if they become pregnant, Casa Valentina recently expanded its program to accommodate young mothers.  The first family, an 18-year-old and her eight-month-old daughter, moved into Casa Valentina in December.    Also, Casa Valentine is working with the University of Miami to study the long-term impact of their program. 

Budget for Casa Valentina is approximately $500,000, 80% of which comes from grants.

Casa Valentina

2990 Southwest 35th Avenue
Miami, FL 33133-3410
(305) 444-0740
www.casavalentina.org  

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[*] Not her real name

[†] Miami-Dade County data on high school graduation and delayed childbearing from Our Kids, Inc. Data on employment while in school from The Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy, FIU (2008)

Thelma Gibson Health Initiative Youth Violence Prevention Program: Protecting Vulnerable Youngsters from the Perils of their Community

“You’re supposed to smile,” said one of the girls.

“Be respectful,” said another

“Stay in the kitchen,” said a third, to which a fourth replied, “That’s passé.”

The older girls were talking about where their values come from – parents, elders, media – and  what it means to be a lady: Be respectful, sweet and quiet, sexy, be weak, mature and nurturing.  But don’t be loud, dirty, nasty, or act like the ghetto, because people will pass judgment. 

It was a lively discussion, this afternoon session of the older girls’ summer program.  Like the Thelma Gibson Health Initiative’s (TGHI) year-round Youth Violence Prevention Program for Miami’s West Coconut Grove neighborhood, the summer program is designed to mix counseling and emotional support with engaging activities.  There are sports, art projects, and field trips to places as diverse as Fairchild Tropical Gardens and City Hall.  But whether the kids are making mosaics or taking their first ever Metro ride to visit the main library downtown, the goals of the program are always in sight: to help them build healthy self esteem; develop strong, positive values and resist negative peer pressure; learn constructive strategies for solving problems and resolving disputes; and experience the world beyond their community.  In this way, the TGHI insulates their young people against the destructive forces in the neighborhood and helps them formulate their hopes and plans for the future.

West Coconut Grove is built largely of African American families where the cycle of poverty has been perpetuated for generations. Unemployment is especially severe, and decent, affordable housing scarce.  An estimated 70% of households are headed by single women living with income at or below federal poverty line.  A majority of these women come from a line of young, single mothers three, four or five generations long.  Like their mothers and grandmothers before them, they had their first child in their teens, never finished high school, did not have access to appropriate role models or mentors while growing up, and have a history of being abused and/or abusing their own children. Although one of the smaller minority communities in Miami-Dade County, West Grove bears a disproportional concentration of social ills: teen pregnancy, flagrant drug abuse and trafficking, untreated mental illness, HIV/AIDS, domestic abuse, and violence of other kinds.  The negative influences are so pronounced that, even among the professional families of this community, one offspring could be a prominent attorney and another could be strung out on the street.   TGHI emerged from the needs inherent in this environment, which, in turn, dictated its evolution.

Merline Barton, who co-founded TGHI and serves as its executive director, had been working on economic development in this community for 24 years. She knew the families. They trusted her, and she attempted to intervene.  Knocking on doors, she was shocked by the problems she encountered. Young mothers couldn’t buy milk or Pampers for their babies. Young men had been arrested. Aged men and women suffered abuse.  Some had their social security checks stolen by their children or grandchildren, who used the money for drugs. Others complained that they were taking multiple medications and couldn’t understand why the doctor was prescribing more.   

Working with Cherry Smart, a social worker, Merline tackled the problems one by one. Word spread.  Thelma Gibson, retired nurse, community matriarch and founder of the Theodore R. Gibson Memorial Fund, gave Merline her blessing, lent her name, and offered her grandmother’s house for an office.  Merline and Cherry, together with interns from four local universities, worked out of this tiny Grand Avenue house.  Friends donated a computer and $1,000 for office supplies.  It was 2001.  Merline and Cherry began a formal program of outreach, education and testing for HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. The Thelma Gibson Health Initiative was born.

Clients coming for services would often bring along their children, most of whom were girls. They needed to be cared for while the adults were receiving help. So Merline cleaned out a store room and assigned a couple of interns to work with them. 

“What do you want us to do for you?” Merline asked the children.  After months of caring, of listening, of understanding, the girls very slowly began to open up:

 “I go home and mommy’s strung out on drugs.  I don’t have any food, Miss,” said one.

“My grandmother is looking after me because my mamma’s in jail. I don’t have any clothes, Miss.  I can’t do my school work because I go to school and I’m hungry,” said a second.

“My hair is not done.”

“My hair is not washed.”

“I need underclothes.”

As it became apparent that abuse and neglect were rampant, Merline built a program of counseling. In partnership with social workers and mental health interns from University of Miami, Florida International University, Barry University, and NOVA Southeastern University, TGHI began to provide counseling for the children and gentle intervention with their families.  By 2010, the program had grown to include case management, individual and group counseling, and family counseling. prevocational and vocational skills training, Life Skills, and more.

Today, 45 girls, ages 8-18, participate in three groups divided by age.  They meet twice a week.  With  intriguing speakers – a hip attorney talking about the rights of youth and how to talk to authority, a nurse talking about developmental and sexual issues,  a nutritionist addressing healthy eating – the kids are empowered to protect themselves.  With programs in African drumming and other facets of their African American heritage and culture, their self-esteem is lifted which, in turn, helps them develop constructive relationships with their peers.  On field trips to places they aspire to go – local colleges and universities, for example – and to places they aspire to avoid – like the criminal courthouse and county jail – the youngsters focus on their dreams and aspirations.  In addition to the group meetings and counseling, they receive, as needed, mentoring, tutoring, GED referrals, resume writing, and help with college and financial aid applications.

When a child enters the program, her entire family undergoes an assessment.  If the home life is secure and nurturing, then perhaps the child is just interested in the activities.  But like as not, the assessment together with future revelations by the child, highlight family problems that could benefit from intervention.    If mom is single and unemployed, she might be interested in help developing a resume or receiving notice of job postings.   Perhaps she needs proper clothes to wear to an interview (in which case Suited for Success comes to the rescue). Perhaps she needs treatment for addiction and is amenable to a referral.  Perhaps a frail elder is living in the household and could benefit from services. Developing programs of its own, working with volunteers, and partnering with other community organizations, TGHI attempts to uplift everyone in the household.  Although TGHI tries to involve parents in the Youth Violence Prevention Program and offers two parenting trainings a years, staff admits engaging the parents is a challenge.

Not so the kids.  Word of mouth brings many to TGHI. Others come as the result of outreach activities at parent and community meetings, in the local library, and at the park.  In addition, TGHI reaches out to the neighborhood schools seeking partnership.  At a student’s first sign of trouble of any kind, TGHI wants to be contacted so that they can work with the child and the parents to solve the problem and help the child succeed in school.

The kids keep coming because the staff creates an environment of mutual respect. They know the staff cares about them.  They trust the staff and they feel safe because they know the staff will help them solve their problems without judging them. They appreciate the consistency and having a place to discuss their frustrations.

And on some level, they probably know that TGHI is their ticket to a successful future.  To date, the great majority of youngsters involved with TGHI have graduated from high school and gone on to college.  This in a county where the graduation rate for Black, non–Hispanic students is just 57% -- the lowest of all demographic groups.[1]  Pregnancy prevention is a central goal of the program as well, and since its inception only one girl has become pregnant.

The Youth Violence Prevention Program began in 2002 with 12 little girls and $5,000 in seed money from the Women’s Fund of Miami-Dade County.  A boys’ group was added in 2010.  Between the girls’ groups, the boys’ groups and youngsters not in the groups but receiving counseling, tutoring and other services, 135 children are presently involved at TGHI, funded by The Children’s Trust. In addition to the Youth program and the HIV/AIDS/Hepatitus intervention, TGHI also provides social services and case management to at-risk seniors. 

In 2005, TGHI moved out of the tiny house in which it began and into larger store-front quarters across the street.  Much of the programming takes place at nearby Elizabeth Virrick Park. Staff has grown to seven plus interns, who come from Carlos Albizu University  as well as the original four schools, and program partnerships of other kinds. Operating budget for the entire TGHI, raised principally through grants, is $425,000, for Youth Violence Prevention, $350,000.

Thelma Gibson Health Initiative

3634 Grand Avenue
Coconut Grove, FL 33133

305 446 1543

http://www.thelmagibsonhealthinitiative.org/contact.html

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[1] Source: Miami Dade County Public Schools Dropout and Graduation Rates, May 2004, May 2005, February 2006, March 2007, February 2008. Office of Assessment, Research and Data Analysis.

The Scholarship Program of the Thomas Armour Youth Ballet: Offering Children from Miami’s Poorest Communities the Gift of Dance

The dance studio at Elizabeth Varrick Park in West Coconut Grove, one of Miami’s poorest communities, looks like it was once a storage room. But it has been retrofitted with a mirrored wall, suspended wooden floor, and ballet barre. There is also a cubby stocked with dance shoes in every conceivable size.  The little girls who dance here often can’t afford their own, and the Thomas Armour Youth Ballet believes the cost of shoes or clothes or transportation should not stand between children in the scholarship program and their love of dance.

It is this love of dance and Thomas Armour’s unique capacity to use this love to catapult children out of poverty that makes the program stand out.  Like many schools of dance, it offers second and third grade children ballet and tap in after-school classes one or two days a week.  For the more advanced, the curriculum becomes more rigorous; the oldest students study 4 ½ - 10 hours a week, including the history and vocabulary of dance. The young artists revel in the dance classes, in part for the predictable routine that they provide; for a population where chaos at home and in the neighborhood is common, this constancy is reassuring.  But dance is the least of it.

Director Ruth Wiesen has created a warm, nurturing environment that, for many students, is a second home. At the school’s headquarters in South Miami, the students come early and stay late to do homework, receive tutoring, work on computers, read in the library.  The youngsters and their families turn to the school administration to resolve myriad problems unrelated to dance. Immigration question? Ask Ruth.  Health problem? Ruth can solve it.  Need help with a college application?  Ruth will help – and the school will underwrite the costs to apply.  And so, the Thomas Armour Youth Ballet becomes a mainstay in its students’ lives. In a summer camp for scholarship students, academic tutoring combines with dance classes and creativity of other sorts. One year, the students made their own costumes. The girls made tutus and the boys made sashes, which they wore for performance and then took home to keep.

For 17-25 of the most advanced students, there are summer intensives at the best companies in New York. The school rents two apartments, one for girls and one for boys, and places a chaperone in each.  The kids, many of whom have never been out of Miami before, take their first plane ride, experience some of the responsibilities of adulthood – managing the apartment budget, creating menus, shopping for groceries,  cooking, and cleaning – and have their horizons broadened.  More important, as the faculty and directors of the companies where they are studying come to know and appreciate them, those who aspire to become professional dancers acquire an advantage in the competition for coveted spots in the troupe.

Many Thomas Armour graduates go on to become professional dancers on Broadway and with such companies as Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, and American Ballet Theater.  But the real triumph is this: Of those who stay with the program through high school, 100% either dance professionally or go on to college.  Most go on to college, which, in fact, is the goal. 

“Dance is a vehicle,” Ruth explains.  Through dance the children learn a discipline, acquire a focus, come to understand delayed gratification.  These translate into all arenas of life and enable the children to succeed in whatever they do.

In order to enhance their chances of getting into and going to college, Ruth aims to get her students into the best high schools in the county.  The specialty schools and magnet programs devoted to the arts are especially coveted because they offer some of the county’s best secondary education and are thus the surest ticket for success later on.  So Ruth does everything she can to optimize her students’ chances for getting in. When kids stop showing up for class, she calls to find out why. Sometimes they can’t afford a bus pass, and the school pays for transportation.

As Ruth surveyed student rosters in the secondary school arts programs, she discovered that although poor children were in elementary- and middle-school dance magnet programs throughout the county, those who lived far from Thomas Armour  were not gaining admission to the most coveted schools. The problem, she realized, was that they did not have access to after-school classes and could not compete with kids who had did. Solution?  Bring after-school classes to the children.  Thus satellite locations sprang up in low-income neighborhoods throughout Miami-Dade County: Morningside/Little Haiti in 2001, Homestead in 2002, West Grove and Redlands in 2004, Miami Gardens in 2011.   As the satellites emerged, the rate of acceptance of poor children into the best arts programs began to climb.

Georgette Fogel, who grew up in the South Miami projects, credits the New World School of the Arts with giving her the gift of a promising future.  Georgette was invited into the Thomas Armour scholarship program from a third grade dance magnet class at South Miami Elementary School.  She was a bright child and a talented dancer, and Ruth pushed her toward New World.  But at age 13, Georgette also developed a love of basketball and decided instead to attend her local high school, known for a tough student population and weak academics. 

“New World was scary,” Georgette says. The prospect of an audition was terrifying and the required summer classes distasteful.  But Ruth was adamant. She helped Georgette prepare for her audition and offered her support and encouragement throughout. Georgette graduated with straight A’s from New World School in June 2011.  The first in her family to attend college, she is now on full scholarship at Florida State University majoring in exercise physiology and planning to become a dentist.

“It [the New World School] was phenomenal academically,” Georgette  gushes.  She credits small classes and individual attention for fostering her love of writing and poetry and with her overall academic success.  “If I had gone to my local high school, I would not have been as successful there.  I would have been around the wrong people.  Half of them got pregnant or didn’t graduate. And the half that did graduate aren’t going to college.”

Founded in 1951, the Thomas Armour Youth Ballet did not have a scholarship program until 1988.  The program was born when an African American child told Ruth she’d love to be a ballet dancer, but that ballet was for white girls.  Ruth set out to change that perception.   The school began its scholarship program by filling vacancies with children recruited from a nearby elementary school dance magnet program.  Students qualified if they received free or reduced-cost lunch and were not taking after-school classes elsewhere.  In the beginning, there were 20 on scholarship.   Today there are 585, half the student body. The $592,000 annual scholarship budget, raised principally through grants and donations, covers instruction, clothing, equipment, summer intensives (exclusive of tuition, which comes from other scholarships), students’ ancillary needs, and the one-time costs of remodeling/equipping new satellite locations.

Thomas Armour Youth Ballet at the Miami Conservatory
5818 SW 73rd St.
South Miami, FL 33143
Tel: 305 667 5543
www.thomasarmouryouthballet.org    

Programs That Work: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty and Transforming Lives

As executive director of Women’s Emergency Network for 12 years, I had the privilege of getting to know extraordinary non-profit organizations working with some of Miami’s most disadvantaged members.  These are small organizations with small budgets.  Yet they are making a profound impact on the lives they touch.  Theirs are stories that need to be told.

The programs you will read about on this blog are transforming the lives of children living amidst drugs and dysfunction; teens destined to perpetuate the cycle of early pregnancy, incomplete education, and enduring poverty; women in desperate straits, many single mothers with children.  All the programs are different, and yet they share several common characteristics:  They offer skills, support, and a sense of security. They build self esteem.  They provide hope for the future.  And most of all, they offer their participants qualities that many had not experienced before:  devotion, reliability and trust.

I write these stories as a reminder that with vision, determination and hard work, the impossible often becomes possible.    I hope the inspiring programs you read about on this blog will motivate you to get to know them better.  Maybe to become involved.  Maybe to send them a donation.   Maybe to replicate them.  If nothing else, I hope they feed your soul and strengthen your conviction that a better world is in our own hands.