It's a new day for children when they go to New Day Art

Six-year-old Robert was sprawled face-down on the floor of New Day Art's "library corner," the top of his head just visible above a book.

"I want to do writing and reading and doing my homework and making shirts and doing projects," he said, his words as rushed as his energy level.

All around him, children lounged on battered recliners and kid-sized rocking chairs, books in hand. More children gradually trickled in from the "homework room" next door as they finished their work, while new arrivals checked in at the front door with staffer Sheneka Ford.

Safe place

For the children who come to New Day Art, a free after-school program in Albany's South End operated through diocesan Catholic Charities, there's nowhere else to go.

Tracie Killar, director, noted that the inner-city neighborhood doesn't have any other place where kids can hang out safely; and these children need a "structured, safe, creative, healthy after-school program."

She listed sobering statistics: Of the approximately 30 children, 6-12, who attend the program, 33 percent have Attention-Deficit Disorder (ADD); 23 percent, an additional mental health issue; and 46 percent, special learning needs that require an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) at school.

Home situations

Some of the children have parents with mental illnesses; a few kids have been hospitalized themselves. Some have siblings with special needs at home, parents struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, or parents who are incarcerated and have left them to be raised by grandparents. All of the children are living in poverty.

"Ultimately, you might be preventing a foster-care placement" by providing a program where the children can just be children, said Mrs. Killar.

New Day Art, open on weekday afternoons, offers not just an "art project of the day," but academic help, snacks, the chance to participate in Girl or Boy Scouts, a "clothing closet" of donated items and much more.

Art, Mrs. Killar believes, involves anything creative. The children learn to cook, act, write, sculpt, draw, paint, make jewelry and even play chess.

Checkmate

Kids sign up for activities according to their interests, and chess has proven wildly popular. "Mr. Mike," the volunteer who teaches chess every Wednesday, tells the children that anyone who's in the first grade and can count to eight can master the game.

Ms. Ford, one of New Day's assistant art teachers, said that the children loudly advise each other on strategy as they try to checkmate their champion teacher.

"Chess is normally a quiet sport, but not here!" she declared, laughing. "The kids really enjoy it."

Testimonials

Nine-year-old James noted that he personally likes getting help with his homework the most. If he wasn't in the program, he said, he'd "just be sitting at home watching TV."

Exuberant Yoselin prefers to eat graham crackers at snacktime but was quick to pull a visitor over to an art table to show off a still-damp clay sculpture of a bird's nest.

"This is a mother of children, and she has eggs -- 15 of them. And her head fell off," she explained seriously.

Struggling program

New Day Art's existence is made possible only through donations. Hispanic Outreach Services, a Catholic Charities agency, provides a part-time academic coordinator, Maria Jose Carranza; donors bring snack food, clothing, art supplies and books.

Aside from volunteers who pitch in whenever they can, Mrs. Killar and three assistants are the only other staff. That limits the number of children the program can accept, since they try to keep a ratio of no more than ten children per staffer. In fact, the director advertises New Day Art only through word-of-mouth, because if too many children applied, she'd have to turn them away.

Finances are always an issue. "We're always looking for new funding. We're on a bare-bones budget," stated Mary Olsen of diocesan Catholic Charities. "We don't have enough money to run the program the way we'd like to."

Learning

New Day is primarily an arts program, but academics are a priority. Ms. Carranza creates an academic plan for each child; kids who arrive with no homework to do get packets of other work they must complete.

Ms. Carranza checks their work and helps them correct mistakes, so they can head to school the next morning confident about their homework.

The children have a wide range of needs. "Some of them need basic knowledge -- what comes before C or after C," Ms. Carranza remarked. "Some of them know what they're doing, especially in math. They have a lot of skills in math."

Reading is also crucial; not only is the "library corner" filled with books the children make a beeline for each day, but reading was on the agenda all summer, too.

"Grownups have become so intimidated by children. They say, 'We can't ask kids to read in the summer,'" said Mrs. Killar. "But they're hungry to read."

Supportive staff

Every staffer must be present for the kids' emotional needs, as well.

"Some of the kids come here not because of art, but because the grownups here are nice to them," Mrs. Killar observed. "You just feel it."

Ms. Ford said that 90 percent of her job is providing emotional support.

"The energy the kids bring here guides us," she added, recalling a child who argued with her over an art project and couldn't manage to apologize, but made her a bracelet the next day.

"Needless to say, it's one of my favorite pieces of jewelry," she boasted, displaying the colorful beads on her wrist.

Kids united

Mrs. Killar said that New Day Art has become a place where racism doesn't exist, where kids "look beyond skin color or clothes or the fact that you might smell today or that your father was arrested last night."

Instead, the children focus on more mundane things -- like art, homework and the arrival of snacktime.

Giggling at kid-sized tables, they listened as Mrs. Killar announced the rules for one day's snacks: "I need everyone to listen! You're going to make your own sandwiches. You can have bologna...or cheese...or peanut butter and jelly. You cannot have peanut butter and bologna!"

"Eeeeuuuwww," groaned a chorus of children.

(New Day Art's program has a spiritual component: The children say Grace at meals, celebrate Christian holidays and learn about other faiths' holidays, often visiting the Mother Teresa Community located upstairs. That community, a combined effort of Catholic Charities and Rev. Peter Young's Altamont Program, offers weekly Masses, social services, housing, employment help and addiction treatment. New Day Art is always in need of volunteers, snack food, clothing and donations. Call 465-3025 or email [email protected].)

(10/13/05) [[In-content Ad]]