By Daksha Pillai,
It isn’t the ping-pong table. Nor is it the foosball machine or the air hockey setup. The Nintendo Switch is a strong contender, but even Mario Kart can’t compete with the champion.
In the contest for the best part of the Kentucky State University Promising Youth Center for Excellence (PYCE), the ultimate winner has to be the kids themselves. After all, it is for the future of these wonderful, talented children that the PYCE was formed.
A haven’s history
PYCE has its roots in the Rosenwald Center for Early Childhood Development, which served as a campus daycare center for 25 years under KSU professor Dr. Herman Walston. After the Rosenwald Center shuttered, Walston decided to use his childhood development expertise to found a new program dedicated to helping at-risk youth succeed through social and emotional learning. Twenty years later, with KSU alum David Fowler Jr. taking up the mantle of program director, PYCE is still fulfilling this mission.
“This is a very unique program on a university campus and one of very few programs for minority kids and kids of color in our community. It’s a haven for many of our kids,” said Walston, who still plays a leading role at the center.
In addition to its year-round afterschool programming, the PYCE also hosts a six-week summer enrichment institute, also known as the “Please Call Me Mister/Miss Program.” African-American, Hispanic and biracial middle school students participate in a variety of academic enrichment, substance-abuse prevention and personal development activities. The center is currently working on securing additional grants that will allow students of all races, as well as 5th graders, to be able to participate.
PYCE is truly invested in helping as many children as possible. For the afterschool program, the center works with local schools, as well as parents, to ensure transportation for the students. From haircuts to free lunches, children receive all the resources they need in order to feel comfortable and confident in their capacity to succeed at the center. Once the kids get in the door, the results speak for themselves
All-rounded achievers
Even for adults, taking on a major project and following through is no easy feat. But at PYCE, students are getting the job done at an early age. Much of the curriculum at PYCE is project-based, allowing students to gain practical experience, as well as a sense of fulfillment when they complete the task at hand.
One of PYCE’s most beautiful projects is also its most environmentally friendly. Aided by the GroMore Good Garden Grant, the kids have turned the parking island outside of the center into a blooming produce patch. The garden boasts a wide variety of vegetables including cucumbers, squash, tomatoes and even chili peppers. At harvest time, the produce is distributed amongst the families of the students, giving new meaning to the phrase “locally sourced.”
For those who prefer the great indoors to the great outdoors, the center is taking its curriculum into the digital age. Fowler, who has a master’s degree in computer science, wants to ensure that the kids also have opportunities to engage with STEM fields, potentially building the pathway to future careers. Students can participate in challenges with Raspberry Pi computers — a single-board computer the size of a credit card — as well as toy cars programmed through simple coding blocks.
In addition to computer whizzes, PYCE is also home to budding artists and writers. At the annual Literacy and Arts Showcase, students and their families display their love for the community through spoken word, vocal and instrumental performances. Sometimes, the students’ talents surprise others, as well as themselves. Mr. Fowler pointed to last year’s showcase, where a young girl who suffered from stage fright astounded the audience by performing an intricate piano piece that she had composed herself.
Walston and Fowler also make sure to pair mental enrichment with physical activity. Through a grant sponsored by the Road Runners Club of America, the center has implemented a running program focused on keeping their students active, as well as preparing them to participate in school sports teams, which can also better their interpersonal skills. Many of the students have developed personal projects focused on fitness, making plans to participate in 5Ks and even marathons.
No matter the field, none of these projects happen in a vacuum. In every discipline, students are not only mastering the task at hand but also learning how to collaborate and engage with their peers, teachers and community members.
“Our motto is respect, the cornerstone from which all positive things occur,” Walston said.
Dollars and sense
Another key goal of PYCE is cultivating a sense of financial responsibility in their young participants, preparing them for the momentous decisions in their future.
Through a “Shark Tank” challenge, students pitch ideas for commercial products while also making the case for the feasibility and necessity of their invention. Some ideas are more realistic than others. Fowler recalls having to tell a child that while a vending machine that produces infinite snacks is imaginative, selling the machine for $1 would probably drive their company into bankruptcy.
In order to spark conversations about entrepreneurship, PYCE regularly embarks on field trips that allow students to see the wide world of opportunities that await them. The summer program recently went to Fayette Mall, where after walking through the bustling stores, students brainstormed their own future business ideas over lunch at the food court. Other excursions have taken the kids to the Louisville Muhammad Ali Center and the Georgetown Toyota Experience Center.
“We find that when we take them away, we learn something new about them that we don’t find here,” Walston said.
These experiences have changed the way that many of the students approach money. Fowler mentioned that after their lessons on community entrepreneurship, one young girl in the program began selling handmade bracelets in order to save money for a scooter. Other children have started to envision themselves as potential business owners and started learning the basic skills of budgeting.
Helping themselves and others
Though the exciting activities enhance the experience, the heart of PYCE lies in its dedication to bettering the inner lives of its students.
“The focus is not on academics, though it reinforces academics. We’re dealing with social and emotional development — respect, working as a team, life skills,” Walston said.
For many children in the program, the center may be the first time that they have received this type of support. Walston and Fowler described the challenges that various students in the program face, including child poverty, community violence and parental incarceration.
In order to support affected kids and their families, PYCE partners with the community mental health center New Vista to provide free therapy and other resources.
“We spend a lot of time teaching them to help themselves so they can help others,” Walston said.
PYCE also integrates their programs with support systems within the community. During the year-round program, KSU students regularly volunteer at the center by providing small groups and one-on-one tutoring, as well as participating in a Big Brother/Big Sister mentoring program where they take individual children under their wing. Last November, the Frankfort Police Department helped the kids decorate turkey baskets to collect donations for families in need.
“I’ve never seen a turkey with eyelashes before,” Fowler joked.
Most importantly, PYCE works to ensure that the center itself is a safe and welcoming place for all of the children. Cultivating this sense of support takes time. Walston described how one young boy wouldn’t talk to him and Fowler for a year due to his past trauma. Now, they can’t get him to stop talking.
“He has confidence now. He knows we’re going to support him,” Walston said.
Lifelong learning
To find out where PYCE could take them in life, the students only have to look at the walls. Papered on every possible surface are newspaper clippings, containing stories of former students and their achievements, some still glossy and vivid while others are yellowed and peeling. From community changemakers to football stars, students are exposed to a number of role models who rose to new heights from similar beginnings. This tapestry of accomplishments serves as a testament to PYCE’s legacy and its ability to foster lifelong learning.
For PYCE’s founder Walston, each one of these stories is a personal point of pride. He still recalls many of the current students’ parents from when he met them as preschoolers at the Rosenwald Center decades ago. Though he has already given many years to the mission of helping at-risk youth, it’s clear that there is still much more that he wants to see accomplished.
“Bringing about change doesn’t come overnight. We have to work with (the kids) to see the change, see them internalize these lessons,” Walston said.
Though it doesn’t come overnight, it’s clear that through labor and love, PYCE has managed to create positive change in the lives of its children. A student, someone Walston still thinks of as a young boy, recently came back to the center for the after-school tutoring program. But he wasn’t the one being tutored — years have passed since his time at PYCE. Now, he’s a proud student at Kentucky State University, simply giving back to the program that helped him get there.
To enroll a child at PYCE or to ask more questions, contact Fowler at david.fowler1@kysu.edu.
