Indian Center Seeks Rebirth After-School Program To Help Native American Students Trying To Raise Money After Losing Funding
Seven-year-old Ashley Bercier used to miss the Native American Center dreadfully on evenings it was closed.
She’d slip into the building and tag along with the janitor, or sit quietly as organizers planned the next week’s activities.
Ashley rarely skipped the after-school program run by Spokane School District 81, where Indian teachers and counselors helped her with homework and provided a taste of her Chippewa/Cree heritage through beading and moccasin-making.
But this summer, when Ashley’s grandfather went to enroll her in the program again, he found it closed for good.
The $400,000 in federal money used to run the program for two years ran out in August. Organizers of the drop-out prevention program knew it was coming, but some of their 170 students were surprised.
“I miss it,” said Ashley, a second-grader at Audubon Elementary School, who lives with her grandparents and extended family near the Indian center on West Spofford.
“It helped her a lot with her homework,” said Macheal Mathias, Ashley’s aunt. “She’s too distracted at home. We have babies that cry and whenever they cried, she’d jump up.”
Children aren’t the only ones who want the program back.
When school began, the center’s supporters pleaded with school board members to find money for the program. They were told there was none to spare.
Now organizers are trying to raise the money themselves. Wells Fargo Bank kicked off the drive this week with a check for $10,000, and Breakthrough, a Spokane family preservation group, contributed another $4,000.
Pam Austin, who coordinates Indian Education for Spokane schools, doubts administrators can reproduce a program of the same caliber, in which $10,000 was spent last year to supply kids from 38 schools with bus and taxi rides to the center.
About $5,000 was paid in consulting fees for people such as the silversmith who helped children make rings, and the college student who taught basketball.
More than $170,000 went for teacher, counselor and tutor salaries, and another $4,300 fed students snacks and dinner.
“They fed her good meals,” said Ashley’s grandmother, Alice Ruiz. “I wouldn’t have minded going over there myself.”
Austin envisions a scaled-back version of the four-day-a-week program - one that relies heavily on volunteers.
Ed Gaffney, District 81’s grant director, said he hopes Congress reinstates money for Indian programs for the 1997-98 school year.
For now, he said, “We’re looking at private foundations, wherever we can. We’re going to do everything possible to continue the program.”
Statistics show Native Americans drop out and miss school days at an alarming rate compared with other students.
One in four Native American high school students dropped out last year, compared with one in 10 students overall, according to District 81 reports.
Middle school Indian students missed an average of 21 days, compared with an average of 13 days missed by middle school students overall.
The after-school center was working hard to reverse that trend, Austin said.
Tutors kept in touch with the students’ teachers to track their progress. Counselors met with children to work through problems at home and in school. They talked to students who were being courted by gangs. Others had been sexually abused or lived with drug-addicted parents, said Jenny Egly, who taught at the center.
Egly said she’s convinced the program is worthwhile because students who’d already spent six hours in school would race to the center for another four hours with educators.
“They’re missing being there with other adults they knew really cared about them, and that were realistic with them, telling them, ‘This is what you need to do to make your world better,”’ Egly said.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo