Our Children

Friends NY serves a population in need, as indicated by many factors, including our location in West Harlem and our partnership with P.S. 241, a Title I school where we have selected children for the past four years. Our partner school´s demographics include: 80.1% African-American, 16.9% Hispanic, 2.2% Asian and 0.8% white.

We select our children through an intensive 6-week assessment process. To select the most at-risk children, we observe their performance and behavior in the classroom, schoolyard, and cafeteria, and analyze their interactions with adults and peers. We have established anecdotal statistics for our children showing that they are gravely affected by specific risk factors:

99% qualify for free or reduced price lunches
61% come from single parent homes
55% are offspring of teenage mothers
45% have a known parent who is or has been in prison
33% had no parent employed last year
27.5% live in foster care or with no parent
25% have been exposed to substance abuse at home
18% have been physically abused
8% have been prescribed some form of psychotropic medication

Children´s Life Stories

Of course numbers don´t tell the individual stories of our children. Following are brief descriptions of the lives of three of our girls (names changed for confidentiality), all of whom were in first grade, age 6, in the winter of 2005:

Monique is an adorable girl with huge dimples and an aptitude for crocodile tears. She lives in a shelter in Brooklyn, but commutes an hour to school in Harlem every day, because that´s where her mother works. She is often kept up late because of travel, or the noise in the shelter where she sleeps. She is a perfectionist who will retrace a single letter over and over again until it is just so. Since we have been working with, she has begun taking swimming lessons for the first time, and is overjoyed that now she is no longer afraid to put her face under water. She tells her Friend that she practices at home in her sink, because the public tub is too dirty to bathe in.

When Ophelia smiles, she has a gaping hole where her front teeth used to be. She is extraordinarily bright, testing at least two grades ahead in reading. She is one of her mother´s four children at home, from three different fathers. Her own father shot himself in the head playing Russian roulette, and she was present to identify his body. Ophelia loves to read, to ask questions about the world and be silly. Because school is so easy for her, she is often found helping other students who "don't get it." Since she has been with Friends, Ophelia has gotten a library card and, at our insistence and with our guidance, is in the process of applying to gifted and talented schools. She has begun to talk about going to college one day.

Maria lives in the projects with her three older sisters and her mother, who speaks only Spanish. In her kindergarten year, she missed twice the legal limit of absences, yet her teacher allowed her to pass because she was so bright. Maria has severe eczema all over her body, exacerbated by a home environment overrun with roaches, dirt and disorder. She shares her clothes with her sisters and often asks her Friend if she can take food from outings home to share with them. She is very self-conscious about her skin condition -- kids call her "pimple hands" -- but she assures her Friend that she knows that "no one is perfect except God, because he is really the cutest one of all." Since their mother works nights, the girls are usually alone from 7pm until they get themselves ready go to school in the morning.

Trip to Philadelphia

For an end of the Summer excursion our Teens enjoyed a trip to Philadelphia.

Our gracious hosts were Executive Director Judy Stavinsky and Deputy Director Dwayne Wharton of Friends of the Children National National office.

Jonas Brothers Concert

A group of our Teens enjoyed an exciting evening with the Jonas Brothers thanks to the generosity of the Robin Hood Foundation. What a great opportunity for kids who only get to see these stars on television.