JP Morgan Chase Announces its Partnership with the Star Learning Center

by, Jamie Letica

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One of the best aspects of the Star Learning Center, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is that it is always bustling with kids. Your eye is drawn immediately to the precisely laid out cups of orange juice, and packages of some sort of children’s snack depending on the day. The kids, although a little rowdy because they have just come from a long day at school, settle in to learn anything from telling time and making change to Calculus. They are all united by the common goal of succeeding in school, but each child has a unique reason for attending STAR as their afterschool activity certain days a week.
JP Morgan Chase presented the Star Learning Center with a ceremonial check for 15,000 dollars late on Monday afternoon. The Star center is the bank’s newest undertaking. Jenny Low, a manager at Chase, decides which community organizations the bank will sponsor in New York City, below 96th street. Her group has a three-focus area in looking for organizations: community, arts and culture, and serving the community in a more holistic way. Low also works closely with pre-collegiate education and public schools to improve the quality of the teachers as well as public education.
The Star Center, in partnership with United Way of New York City, and St. Matthews/St. Timothy’s Neighborhood Center, is a school-year tutoring service that is geared towards children who cannot afford private tutoring. While there is an initial registration fee, there is no charge for each individual tutoring session and all of the tutors are volunteers.
The Star Center is one of 200 programs that JP Morgan Chase helps to sponsor below 96th street in New York City. While Low believes that “programs like this should help fewer and fewer children if the school system is serving its purpose,” she supports the Star center because of its excellence in tutoring. To which Dena Hellman, the director of Star Learning Center replied, “we are happy to fall under your umbrella.” Low believes the center has a strong impact on the community they serve, which has grown significantly since its start 50 years ago.
Hellman says while the majority of the children used to be just the “neighborhood kids,” the students now come from all five boroughs. She even has one family from Pennsylvania. Although the parents work in the city, Pennsylvania was the only affordable place to buy a house. Therefore the parents drive into the city each day, drop their kids off at school, then at the Star Center, and they finally “make the long commute back home at the end of the day,” sais Hellman.
Hellman stressed the idea that “if you come with a need, all I need to do is find a volunteer. “ She says they very rarely turn a child away and finding the volunteers is her biggest challenge. “We even have a request for Latin,” she exclaimed.
There is no criterion for a child. The program is meant for low-income families, but Hellman and her team never ask for a profile on the family or the school that the child attends. However, each child is tested with the center’s own diagnostic test that is then used to match the child up with a tutor.
There is no limit on how long a child can be tutored for. The majority of the children stay for a full school year, however there are also a number of children who remain at the center for many years. Hellman pointed to one special case in which a young boy began coming to the Star Center for tutoring when he was in second grade. He is now 11th grade, and still comes regularly to be tutored by the same tutor he has always had. He also tutors young children to “give back to his community,” said Hellman.
Lillian Robles, the Director of St. Matthews and St. Timothy’s, says the center “never advertizes for a child.” She is proud of the recent partnership with the Star Learning Center and stresses the importance of being involved in every aspect of a child’s school life. Each child is asked to bring in his or her current report card, and letters are sent to the child’s teachers to let them know what is being accomplished during tutoring. She says the center works closely with a child’s family and “is always willing to contact a child’s school and teachers if the family does not feel comfortable.”
While Stephan Russo, the executive director of the Goddard Community Center, an affiliate of the Star Learning Center, says they do not actively try to get involved in the non-academic aspects of a child’s life, “if a child comes to us with a problem, we are going to try our best to help them solve it, no matter what it may be.” The center now has the advantage of Goddard’s social workers to help the children, as well as the resources that St. Matthews and St. Timothy’s offer.
Hellman piggybacked Russo’s statement, by saying, “we don’t advertize that, but if we can help a family, we will.”
Kendall Frank, a former tutor at the Star Center, says her experience working with the children was uplifting. Frank worked with two different children while she was there. She says that Star is definitely worthy of JP Morgan Chase’s support. “It is so nice to see a small neighborhood organization grow, because it is benefiting so many children,” she says.
Frank, like many of the center’s volunteers, worked at the Star Learning Center for more than merely one year. Kate Maxwell, the outreach coordinator, works closely with Hellman to make sure their volunteers maintain this loyalty. It is the feeling of the tight-knit atmosphere, and the willingness of the children to succeed in their endeavors that attached me to the Star Learning Center, as a volunteer for my final two years of high school.
The Star Learning center is truly a special place, and it seemed as if the center and JP Morgan Chase are just beginning the start of a great friendship. ###