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The activity on Germantown Avenue in the Fairhill section of North Philadelphia never rests. It pulses to the vibrating beats that resonate from the record stores selling the latest Jay-Z album and the carefully stocked clothing stores overflowing with denim. However, you will find yourself engulfed in a serene calm if you take a sharp turn down Adler Street and enter the Philly Spells writing center.
The center, which opened in early January of this year, is the most recent addition to Fairhill’s Village of Arts and Humanities. The Village is an urban dwellers dream, a magical space filled with tiled murals and encased by stone statues speckled with colored glass. Its mission is to revitalize the surrounding community through creative arts such as singing, dancing, acting and fashion design. The only thing missing from the multi-faceted village was a place to hone one’s literary skills. That is until Philly Spells came into the picture.
“I think it’s the perfect area because there is already a community here, a community of people who come to the Village for classes in the arts and humanities,” says Philly Spells Executive Director Christina Rose Dubb. “And they do a lot of classes in music and dance and a lot of artistic things, but what they don’t have is a real literacy program. And that was something that was lacking in the community and part of what we wanted to do was to make ourselves available to a community that really needed us.”
The writing center is based on the 826 tutoring center started by author Dave Eggers in the Valencia neighborhood of San Francisco. The non-profit tutoring center, which now has locations in eight major U.S. cities, is dedicated to providing free one-on-one mentoring sessions, as well as project-based group learning that results in finished products. Philly Spells stays true to the 826 model by offering children and teens ages 6-18 with after school tutoring, hands on writing workshops and presentations by professional authors. Recently, the center hosted an event titled, “Based on the Novel By…” during which children rewrote scenes from favorite books that were adapted into films.
“We want to give kids that experience so they can decide for themselves whether or not they like reading or writing seeing what it really can be,” says program director Karen Zaino. “Not just limited to ‘this is what reading is; reading is reading a short passage about a boring thing you don’t care about’, and ‘writing is writing an essay about a book you read that you didn’t like. ‘“
By piquing children’s interests in reading and writing through creative workshops outside of the classroom the center ultimately hopes to push kids to reach their highest potentials in school. This is especially pertinent in the Fairhill neighborhood where only 2.6 percent of the population has gone on to receive Bachelor’s degrees after completing high school. Instead alternative institutions like Fairhill Community High School have been established to provide at risk youth with a modular based alternative to the traditional school setting. Philly Spells hopes to excite children about learning early on so that institutions like this are no longer necessary.
“I think a lot of times students drop out of high school because they are bored,” says Rose Dubb. “They’re not getting the amount of attention that they need, the work is not exciting to them, not relevant to them and their community or their life and they kind of feel like ‘well it’s not worth it’. But what Spells is trying to do is show that writing and literacy can be fun and be relevant.“
In order to do so the Spells Writing Center must rely on the help of willing volunteers, especially those who live in areas outside of Fairhill. This is not always easy due to the fact that the center is not located in sight of a major public transportation center, as well as because of reservations many outsiders feel about entering the isolated Fairhill neighborhood.
“The neighborhood is definitely typical of what I would think of when I think of North Philadelphia,” says Kevin Bentley a senior at Swarthmore College during his first visit to the writing center. “When I say that I mean it’s a different kind of vibe than West Philadelphia which I feel is going through a really big gentrification process. So I think that it’s really interesting to see a space like this here to give help, to give outreach to the community.”
Bentley hopes to assist Philly Spells in achieving its educational by lending his time to tutor and mentor the children who come to the center. His presence is a key element in educating Philly Spells’ participants not only in reading and writing but in cultural diversity as well.
“I think it’s good that we’re bringing in people from outside the neighborhood, both because it’s good for them to experience a new place and it’s good for people in the neighborhood to meet new folks,” Zaino says. “I always think that that clashing of the cultures is an interesting experience for everyone involved.”
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